Posted on 07/22/2023 9:30:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has been working on a plan to massively increase the tolls charged to people coming into New York City since last year. Now that plan is finally going into effect, or at least it was. The scheme may be on hold now because the Governor of New Jersey filed a lawsuit to stop the rate hikes from going into effect. He apparently couldn’t figure out a way to sue New York State directly, so he is instead suing the Federal Highway Administration over its approval of the plan last year. And since it’s not illegal to charge a toll or a fee to drive on a road or bridge, Governor Phil Murphy is suing on environmental damage grounds, claiming that the project was approved without a sufficiently comprehensive environmental study… or something.
New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit aimed at stopping New York’s plan to charge big tolls to drive into the most visited parts of Manhattan, arguing that New Jersey residents and towns will bear the brunt without benefiting.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced his state’s plans on Friday. The lawsuit against the Federal Highway Administration claims the agency’s approval of the plan last month was “misguided” and violates the National Environmental Policy Act. New Jersey also wants a more comprehensive environmental study conducted for the plan.
New York officials have said the first-in-the-nation plan is part of an effort to reduce traffic, to improve air quality and to raise funds for the city’s public transit system.
The plan in question will introduce a confusing series of “congestion” fares at different times of the day. Running as high as $23 per car during peak periods, this will significantly increase the cost of commuting into and out of Gotham. It’s being done under the guise of climate concerns, with Hochul claiming that reduced traffic will lead to lower emission levels or whatever, pushing more people to take the increasingly dangerous buses and subways. But she really just wants to be able to have the state collect those extra fees.
Pushing more people onto mass transit in that area is problematic as well. We already know that New York’s Mass Transit Authority is facing a nearly one billion dollar budget shortfall. Pushing them into adding additional capacity at this point would only exacerbate the situation. Crime on the subways is already bad enough without jamming even more potential victims into the loop.
Murphy takes the opposite stance, of course. Many people who can’t afford to live in Manhattan choose to live in New Jersey and commute. They will be the ones shouldering the brunt of these new fees, and New Jersey’s governor is trying to score some points by preventing or at least delaying the price increases. All of that makes sense, but this plan was originally drawn up back in 2019, though without the final fees being specified. If the environmental survey is insufficient now, why wasn’t it insufficient back then?
The MTA believes that New Jersey’s assessment is nonsense. Their spokesperson pointed out that the 4,000-page environmental evaluation study was “supervised at every stage and specifically approved by the Biden administration.” So New Jersey is unlikely to have Washington riding to its rescue and thwarting New York’s plans.
Perhaps they need to stop arguing about the environmental impacts of this congestion pricing scheme and address the real problem. Price hikes like these will undoubtedly deter some people from commuting. That will result in less revenue for New York and fewer people both working there and coming for reasons of tourism. People are already fleeing the city in droves. Do you really want to drive more of them away? The solution to every problem can’t simply be higher taxes and fees because you’re eventually going to run out of other people’s money. Rather than going to something this extreme, perhaps set aside some money to add extra lanes to the turnpikes and bridges. Traffic has managed to continue flowing in and out of New York under the current conditions. It can do so for a while longer, surely.
It appears that even democrats don’t like living with democrat policies when it actually affects them, too.
Fancy that…..
Why not implement high tolls for vehicles driving from New York into New Jersey?
You beat me to it.
I’ll just add that it should be about $10,000 dollars.
Then start smuggling more illegals into NY.
Upstate New Yorkers should be exempt from paying NY entry tolls. We’re traveling in our own State and New Jersey happens to be in the way.
Regards,
This will mean more work at home for business in NYC or closing and moving somewhere else.
Some New Yorkers tell me people are not paying to get into New York; they are paying to get out of New Jersey.
$23 to enter midtown Manhattan? If I was the governor of New Jersey I would be demanding a $23,000 toll.
I would be just fine with sitting back watching these deserving pagan fascists writhing in their lake of gore and the filth, except for the fact that there are innocents among them and decent people will end up paying for their error.
That b-tch.
We suffer the influx of New Yorkers in our state with many of them moving here to tell us everything that is wrong with our state.
NYers also fraudulently get our auto insurance while being residents of NY- with many of them never even having lived here. There was an article about how every 12th or 13th car that went into a tunnel in NY had my state’s license plate - which meant they could get our state insurance at a considerable discount when compared to NY. Research showed dozens of those cars listed the exact same address in my state to get their tags sent.
So, screw her and her financially corrupt empire.
Meanwhile, New Jersey charges Pennsylvania drivers a toll to cross into Jersey. Hypocrites!
If Joisey did that, the toll would be imposed in the evening commute on the same people who paid the $23 toll in the morning. As somebody else has already pointed out in this thread, the NJ governor should use this as an opportunity to get employers to put their offices in New Jersey, save everybody the toll, and get the NJ employees out of paying the NY income tax on telecommuters if they don’t go into the NYC office.
That is an excellent suggestion.
The toll increase is a way to tax non resident New Yorkers. The fact means that the city of New York is no longer viable as a going concern.
NYC is obsolete
Two reasons: 1. Do you really want to tax NJ residence when they return to NJ from NY after they already paid $23 to travel into NY?
2. There are fewer NYC residents traveling to NJ for work every day. How many NYC residents even own cars?
“This is a glorious opportunity for New Jersey to poach major employers from NYC. He should be encouraging NYC’s initiative.”
This is exactly the difference between liberals and conservatives.
Liberals want the quick fix, the quick political benefit, no matter the long term cost.
Conservatives think about the long game.
This might be enough to convince many of the “innocents” that enough is enough and it is time to flee the region completely.
They are getting crushed by the local taxes already in New Jersey—time to just say no.
True. Put the tolls on commercial vehicles that deliver goods back and forth. Let New Yorkers who don't drive pay for it with every purchase they make.
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