New Jersey residents are fuming over New York’s pending new Manhattan congestion tax — and threatening to exhaust every option to stall the plan.
“It’s taxation without representation,” Ron Simoncini, executive director of the new Fair Congestion Pricing Alliance, told The Post. Members of the alliance are upset by what they say is a New York plan to pick the pockets of thousands of New Jersey residents.
“We’re not going to relent if New Jersey commuters are discriminated against, period,” Gov. Murphy said at a recent meeting of the Morris County Chamber of Commerce, Politico reported.
At odds are fees New Jersey drivers will be forced to pay the state of New York to drive into Manhattan’s “congestion zone” below 60th Street. New York’s goal is to implement the plan in 2023 and use the funds to improve MTA services.
Hearings by New York officials with New Jersey residents to discuss congestion fees are “a dog and pony show,” Simoncini said.
For New Jersey drivers, those fees will come in addition to the burden they already bear, as much as $16 per day, to drive into Manhattan through the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels or over the George Washington Bridge.
Tunnel and bridge fees benefit the joint NY/NJ Port Authority, Simoncini noted, which among other services provides PATH rail travel between the two states. Manhattan’s congestion tax will fill only New York’s coffers.
“The Port Authority does not have a seat at the table” setting congestion fee policy, Simoncini said, even though New York “needs the Port Authority to get people into Manhattan.”
The congestion tax could cost New Jersey auto commuters an additional $3,000 per year to fund the New York City subway system.
Unless New York makes concessions, Gov. Murphy threatened at the Morris County meeting to unleash the “nuclear option” and veto Port Authority minutes — a move which would put the legal brakes on any action the Authority plans to take.
Opposition to the plan exists among Manhattan residents, too, especially those who live within the congestion zone.
New York is not likely to relent in its effort to force all drivers to share the costs, said state Sen. Brad Hoylman, (D-Manhattan), who represents much of the congestion district and supports the plan.
“The statute does not have any allowance for New Jersey drivers,” Hoylman told The Post. “In fact I think (New Jersey) should consider their own congestion charge if their goal is to encourage people to use mass transit and make streets safer and cleaner.”