MTA officials planned to press forward with congestion pricing in Midtown and Lower Manhattan next week following an eleventh-hour ruling in a critical lawsuit against the controversial tolling plan — even as the state of New Jersey claimed victory, saying the ruling meant the toll must be paused.
Judge Leo Gordon wrote in an opinion filed Monday evening in Newark federal court 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.
“[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, has been considered 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.
But Randy Mastro, the attorney representing the Murphy administration in its quest to end the toll, also claimed victory Monday night.
“[T]he judge has ordered a remand, and the MTA therefore cannot proceed with implementing the current congestion pricing proposal on Jan. 5, 2025,” he said in a statement.
Mastro went on to claim that Gordon’s decision meant that “more consideration is needed before the current congestion pricing proposal may take effect.”
While Gordon did call on the feds to explain last month’s decision to phase in the toll at a lower initial rate, as well as elaborate on its assessment of alternative plans since ” a remand is already in order on the issue of mitigation.”
But at no point in the 72 page decision does Gordon explicitly order a pause or vacate the fed’s approval of the MTA’s environmental assessment.
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 the toll they said 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.”
