diplore t1_j2c0je5 wrote on December 31, 2022 at 3:11 AM

Reply to comment by bodhipooh in Gridlock downtown on Friday afternoon by Old_Perspective_6417

Can't the city enact some sort of pared-down congestion pricing to discourage using city streets to circumvent traffic? I.e. if you enter JC from specific exits and then proceed to enter the Holland Tunnel before a certain amount of time elapses, you get billed a congestion pricing surcharge? If NYC is allowed to move forward with a much more restrictive congestion pricing model, I can't imagine that this would be illegal.

bodhipooh t1_j2d34ij wrote on December 31, 2022 at 10:04 AM

Jersey City doesn’t have the legal authority to do that. We are not NYC. They [NYC] enjoy a special status (conferred upon them by the State legislature) that gives the city the legal authority to enact laws and regulations that wouldn’t be possible or legal for other cities to do the same. Basically, anything we want to do that’s not strictly local has to be approved or allowed by the State government and legislature. For example, we couldn’t create additional taxes (eg, the recent payroll tax) unless explicitly approved by the State Legislature. We can’t control or restrict access to local roads without the state approving that. And, a plan to impose congestion pricing, or other surcharges, would require state and federal approval, along with the cooperation of the NJTA and (possibly?) the PANYNJ.

diplore t1_j2dlc56 wrote on December 31, 2022 at 1:47 PM

My comment was meant to be more high-level, it stands to reason that there would be mounds of political red tape. New York also cannot just deploy congestion pricing at will, either. It had to be signed into law by state legislature as well as the New York State governor, and still requires approval on a federal level from the FHWA.

ffejie t1_j2dtrsn wrote on December 31, 2022 at 2:57 PM

Yes, and we've seen how long NYC is taking to get a law implemented (it was signed way back in 2019!) - it will be a long time before JC can get something like this done. With that in mind, I guess that means we should start now.