Garden State Sen. George Helmy said Sunday that businesses could easily flee New York to New Jersey if they found out that new congestion pricing in Midtown was costing their businesses and employees too much. He said he could not.
The tolls would be $9 for cars and up to nearly $22 for trucks, with a significant impact on New Jerseyans commuting to work and businesses doing business in Manhattan. Helmy said on CBS New York's “The Point with Marcia Kramer.”
The senator argued that the toll would reduce traffic and provide revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a perpetually cash-strapped public transportation system. He said it could be relocated across the river, where workers and customers wouldn't have to pay extra. cash.
“Over the past two years, we have seen an increasing number of New York City-based organizations, including business associations, say this is bad for business and bad for working families in the city,” Helmy said. Ta.
“Many of our employees who come into town every day are New Jerseyans, most of them Northern New Jersey. [they] They live in our coastal communities,” the senator said.
“And if they can get it; [their] “I think it's going to be good for New Jersey as we're already seeing that influx of businesses moving to Jersey City and Hoboken,” he said.
But he reiterated that congestion pricing as a whole is “bad for New Jersey and bad for the city.”
Several Garden State officials, including Gov. Phil Murphy, U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, say the new rates were a mistake.
“This plan is a tax on New Jersey families designed to force New Jerseyans to pay for MTA upgrades. Not a cent will go back to New Jersey transit dollars,” Gottheimer said. said Sherrill, who is running to replace Mr Murphy next year.
“Make no mistake about it: New Jersey is not going to sit back and sit by while New York uses our commuters as meal tickets for the MTA,” she said.
There are already nearly a dozen lawsuits challenging the high-cost plans, which recently cleared key legislative hurdles and are scheduled to begin on January 5, according to CBS.
Earlier this month, lawyers for New Jersey's governor asked a federal judge in Newark to rule on one of the largest lawsuits aimed at ending congestion pricing. The plan, proposed by Hochul, was paused before the election and brought forward again soon after.
“I have always expressed openness to forms of congestion pricing that meaningfully protect the environment and do not impose an unreasonable burden on hardworking New Jersey commuters,” Murphy said. This is what he said about the fees: “Today's plan largely fails that test.”
