NJ is right. Congestion pricing plan is bad for NYC's surburbs

Floyd Lapp
·2 min read
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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's congestion pricing proposal has emerged as a fools’ errand.

Rockland County Executive Ed Day is correct in his recent comments that the MTA treats the area west of the Hudson River as a transportation orphan.

Staten Island, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and many of the Garden State's congressional delegation have joined the growing list of those who believe that charging motorists traveling south of Manhattan’s 60th Street potentially $23 is a planned mistake and is likely to continue the trend of taxpayers leaving New York — and its suburbs.

The MTA has a long history of fiscal mismanagement — usually completing large transit projects late to the gate and, as a result of inflation, costing more than if they were implemented in a timely fashion.

Charlie Stile: Faux outrage over congestion tolls may be good politics. NJ Transit is still a mess | Stile

More perspective: Want to stick it to NYC’s congestion pricing? Fully fund in NJ Transit.

Gov. Phil Murphy announces New Jersey's intent to file a lawsuit to stop a congestion pricing proposal brought by New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to increase tolls into Manhattan from the outer boroughs, New Jersey, Rockland and Westchester counties, Staten Island and Long Island.
Gov. Phil Murphy announces New Jersey's intent to file a lawsuit to stop a congestion pricing proposal brought by New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to increase tolls into Manhattan from the outer boroughs, New Jersey, Rockland and Westchester counties, Staten Island and Long Island.

Recent examples include the introduction of the Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Terminal and extending the New York City No. 7 Subway extension to western Manhattan. The MTA has never undertaken a fiscal assessment to put their house in order and, for years, the authority operated without a capital budget.

While the MTA is focused on congestion reduction, New York City’s Department of Transportation is building bicycle lanes, exclusive bus lanes and pedestrian islands south of 60th Street that further reduce street space for private and commercial vehicles, including trucks.

Let’s stop romancing regionalism unless:

  • The goals and objectives are very clear

  • The geographic scale is manageable

  • There is a strategy to deal with urban and suburban differences and the implementation costs

  • And environmental impacts are clear and thoroughly reviewed

Floyd Lapp, a resident of New City, was vice chairman of the Rockland County Housing Advisory Committee and director of Housing and Community Development for the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission in the 1970s and 1980s.

Floyd Lapp, a planner, shares his impressions of the Hudson Link bus ride, a form of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), from the Palisades Center to White Plains April 24, 2019. Lapp, who took the ride for the first time, found crossing the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge to be the only part considered to be BRT.
Floyd Lapp, a planner, shares his impressions of the Hudson Link bus ride, a form of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), from the Palisades Center to White Plains April 24, 2019. Lapp, who took the ride for the first time, found crossing the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge to be the only part considered to be BRT.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NY congestion pricing plan is unfair to the suburbs