New Jersey is suing the Federal Highway Administration over the MTA's congestion pricing plan. Anthony Johnson has the latest.Governor Phil Murphy made the announcement Friday morning in Fort Lee alongside Senator Bob Menendez and Rep. Josh Gottheimer.
"We are particularly disappointed by the lack of a thorough environmental impact review and the lack of mitigation measures for impacted communities, like Fort Lee," Murphy said during Friday's news conference. "Unfortunately, New York's proposal will prompt toll shopping, where more drivers seek circuitous routes to avoid paying the highest tolls, resulting in more traffic and more pollution in certain areas.
"In connection with this extraordinary and unprecedented revenue stream, the MTA has agreed to allocate 10% to Long Island Rail Road and 10% to Metro-North Railroad - but nothing to New Jersey's transit agencies, even though more than 400,000 New Jersey residents commute into Manhattan every day and will pay millions of dollars to the MTA under this congestion pricing scheme."
"Every day we delay implementing this policy is another day we are not funding transit, reducing dangerous emissions in our air, and managing traffic congestion across New York City and the metropolitan region," said a statement from the advocacy group Congestion Pricing Now.