New York City’s congestion pricing program is facing its first legal test on Wednesday as lawyers for the State of New Jersey head to federal court in Newark to challenge the new tolls.
New Jersey’s governor, Philip D. Murphy, and other state officials are suing the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, an agency within that department, for allowing the program to move forward.
They claim that federal transportation officials failed to fully address the program’s environmental and financial effects on some New Jersey communities, which could see more traffic and pollution when commuting patterns change as drivers avoid the tolls, according to court filings.
“It isn’t about whether you like or don’t like congestion pricing,” Randy M. Mastro, a lawyer for the State of New Jersey, said during his opening remarks in the courtroom. The issue, he said, was whether the Federal Highway Administration “took a hard look” at the potential environmental effects.
The New Jersey lawsuit is widely seen as the most serious challenge to the tolling program, which is expected to begin charging drivers in mid-June, and could potentially block or upend it at the last minute. State officials are seeking a more comprehensive environmental study of the program, which would delay it. Wednesday is the first day of a two-day hearing that has been scheduled on the case before Judge Leo M. Gordon, who is expected to make a decision before the tolls start in just over two months.
Most passenger cars will be charged $15 a day to enter a designated congestion zone in Manhattan at 60th Street and below during peak hours, while commercial trucks will be charged $24 or $36 during those times, depending on their size. The program is expected to reduce traffic in the city’s central business district and raise $1 billion annually for improvements to New York’s mass transit system.
The new tolls were approved last week by the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the New York State agency overseeing the program, following an environmental study of its effects. A recent public feedback process elicited more than 25,000 comments about the plan, of which roughly 60 percent were in support.
M.T.A. officials have said that their environmental study was extensive and that mitigation steps will be taken if appropriate, including in New Jersey.
The program is being reviewed by the Federal Highway Administration, which is expected to approve it.
In recent months, a growing number of elected officials, union leaders and residents across the New York City region have mobilized against congestion pricing, citing the cost of the tolls and the potential environmental and public health effects on their neighborhoods. The pricing plan was initially approved by New York State legislators in 2019.
Six lawsuits, including New Jersey’s, have been brought against the program in local federal courts. The mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., Mark J. Sokolich, has filed a related lawsuit.
And four additional lawsuits have been brought in New York: one by Ed Day, the Rockland County executive; one by the United Federation of Teachers and Vito Fossella, the Staten Island borough president; and two by separate groups of city residents. A federal court hearing has been scheduled for the New York cases on May 17.
Amid the lawsuits, M.T.A. officials have suspended some capital construction projects that were to be paid for by the program and warned that crucial work to modernize subway signals on the A and C lines had been delayed.
