In an eleventh-hour ruling, a federal judge in New Jersey allowed MTA officials to press forward with congestion pricing in midtown Manhattan next week, but said regulators have two weeks to spell out their plans to offset expected pollution increases in New Jersey from changing traffic patterns.
Judge Leo Gordon wrote in an opinion filed Monday evening that the Federal Highway Administration must account for why the congestion pricing plan it approved details specific pollution mitigations for the Bronx, but fails to detail such plans for several New Jersey towns, despite the fact that both regions are expected to see an increase in motor vehicle traffic after the plan goes into effect.
But Gordon’s decision does not stop the congestion toll from going into effect on Sunday as planned.
“[T]he court will remand this issue for further explanation, and if appropriate, reconsideration of the rationale providing for differing levels of mitigation commitments for the Bronx as compared to potentially significantly affected areas in New Jersey,” Gordon wrote.
The MTA’s own environmental assessment of the tolling plan acknowledged that truck traffic and pollution could increase in parts of the Bronx, upper Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey, as drivers seek to circumvent the tolling zone.
The ruling, on one first and most serious legal challenge to New York’s congestion pricing plan, eliminates one of the more potentially significant hurdles to the planed Jan. 5 start date for congestion tolling. Gordon set a Jan. 17 deadline for the FHWA to provide that explanation and take any other required actions.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber presented the ruling as a victory.
“We’re gratified that on virtually every issue, Judge Gordon agreed with the New York federal court and rejected New Jersey’s claim that the Environmental Assessment approved 18 months ago was deficient,” he said, in a statement.
“Most important, the decision does not interfere with the program’s scheduled implementation this coming Sunday, Jan. 5,” Lieber added.
The suit, brought in July 2023 by the administration of N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy, argued that the feds had failed to conduct a “comprehensive” and “complete” environmental review of a toll that would cause pollution in New Jersey by changing regional traffic patterns.
The MTA’s plan included a $155 million earmark toward pollution mitigation, with specific plans to build an asthma center in the Bronx, refit the Hunts Point market with more efficient modern diesel refrigeration units, and build a charging hub in the borough for electric trucks.
Gordon wrote Monday that he disagreed with the state of New Jersey’s contention that the MTA’s plan failed to take a “hard look” at pollution impacts in the Garden State, but “agre[ed] with Plaintiff that the lack of specificity as to mitigation for some of these communities warrants further explanation, and if appropriate, reconsideration.”
“Plaintiff [the state of New Jersey] raises some persuasive arguments that the FHWA appears to have acted in an arbitrary manner when it set specific place-based mitigation funding commitments for the Bronx, but failed to do so with respect to New Jersey,” he added.
And while Gordon called on the feds to account for the difference in the mitigation strategies on either side of the Hudson, the judge said he disagreed with the Murphy administration’s contention that the congestion pricing plan “turned a blind eye to impacts in New Jersey.”
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