As reported in MTR, the NJ Department of Environmental Protection recently released some inspired yet ominously vague recommendations for how to meet the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, spelled out in the Global Warming Response Act (GWRA). Under the Act, NJ must reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and cut emissions to 80% below the 2006 level by 2050. Overall, the report presents a comprehensive approach toward reducing NJ’s carbon footprint that includes progressive solutions aimed at shifting travel patterns, such as an expanded transit network including bus rapid transit, transit-oriented development, complete streets, and zoning and planning reforms that link transportation and land use. However, an overall lack of specificity and prioritization are discouraging, and what few deadlines and concrete goals it proffers will require heavy lifts from state agencies and the legislature, and hard shoves from advocates. Below are summaries of TSTC’s comments on the plan:
Lay off the tailpipe, speed up the land use
 Maybe some things are better left in California. Of the “core” items which the plan relies on to meet its 2020 goals, the only transportation-related ones are a Low Emissions Vehicle (LEV) program that will call for automakers to reduce fleetwide emissions from vehicles sold in NJ by 30%, and for all new vehicles sold in NJ to meet California-level emissions standards. While these efforts are laudable, the LEV program relies on the state’s ability to shift consumer behavior during a recession. It is imperative that other measures, such as reduction in VMT statewide, accompany the 2020 tailpipe measures from the start if the benchmark goals are to be achieved.
Zero Emission Vehicles and “ecodriving” should not be emphasized as integral components of the 2020 recommendations. One recommendation in the plan is to implement the American Association of State Transportation and Highway Officials-supported “ecodriving” program, which teaches people to save fuel by changing their driving habits. Fine, but the report suggests that the program could reduce the state’s carbon footprint by up to 22%. Such a large reduction would require every driver in the state to embrace the program, a massive shift in individual behavior that can’t be assumed. Recommendations to promote Zero Emission Vehicles are equally aspirational for reduction calculations, since they rely on uncertain alternative fuel and electric car technologies.
Could you be a little more specific?
Many of the other transportation recommendations are well intentioned, but lack concrete details needed to measure their efficacy. Without binding interim goals and indicators, NJ could easily go off track.
The state needs to elucidate specific measures necessary to achieve its goal of capping vehicle miles traveled at 1% annually, and include these measures in 2020 goals. As part of the near-term goals, NJDEP must determine how to quantify the impacts of its VMT reduction measures. It also must establish targets and an action plan to reduce VMT growth to 1% or less annually. Similarly, NJ should define target levels of greenhouse gas output and VMT growth in a way that is sensitive to the context of the state’s varying corridors and neighborhoods. This will help avoid “one size fits all” projects that do not accomodate all road users or reflect surrounding land uses.
Although Tri-State was pleased to see demand management strategies included in the report, the report needs to provide next steps and a timeframe for evaluating pricing mechanisms such as HOT lanes, congestion pricing and pay-as-you-drive insurance. Tactics like HOT lanes promote carpooling and transit use, and provide a viable revenue source for the state. However, simply assessing the strategy will not produce results.
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The Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Eastern Environmental Law Center filed suit today in State Appellate Court against the NJ Department of Environmental Protection’s approvals of the NJ Turnpike Authority’s plans to widen the Garden State Parkway one lane in each direction from exits 30 to 80.
New Jersey is seeking to use federal stimulus [...]
The East Side Access and Garden State Parkway widening projects are both in search of federal dollars.
Transportation advocates are still fighting to get more transit funding into the economic stimulus bill, with anywhere from $9-12 billion likely to be included in the final package. But another important question is where that money [...]
 (Clockwise from left:) Rendering of new NJ Transit rail station in NYC, section of 12-lane NJ Turnpike, new NJDOT Commissioner Stephen Dilts, NJ Transit's GoBus route. The Corzine administration spent much of 2008 trying to fund three megaprojects. One was the Access to the Region’s Core project to build a second rail tunnel connecting NJ and New York City, a vital project that will double NJ Transit rush-hour capacity into and out of NYC. The other two were unwise widenings of the NJ Turnpike from exits 6-9 and the Garden State Parkway from exits 30-80, which together could cost over $3 billion.
Early in 2008, the governor pushed his “asset monetization” plan which would bond against huge highway toll increases to fund the three projects and replenish the state’s nearly bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund — the funding source for most transportation capital projects. By the spring it became clear that the hugely unpopular plan had no chance of passing the State Legislature. The critical question of how to fix the Trust Fund was pushed aside for later, and smaller toll increases on the Turnpike and Parkway were approved in September to fund the three megaprojects.
Unfortunately, the state’s focus on megaprojects, especially the highway widenings, seems to have come at the cost of a broader transportation policy. In December, the NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection released a draft greenhouse gas plan full of progressive transportation recommendations like transit-oriented development and complete streets legislation. But the plan said nothing about the Turnpike and Parkway widenings, which would clearly increase the state’s emissions.
New Jersey Transit
Due in part to skyrocketing gas prices and continued investment in transit projects, NJ Transit was poised for another year of record ridership in 2008. It continued to expand and improve its network, laying the groundwork for many more years of increased ridership.
Governor Corzine further solidified his commitment to transit by increasing the agency’s operating budget by $60 million over the previous year. Unfortunately, NJ Transit once again had to divert capital dollars to cover operations (for an earlier look at this pattern, see MTR # 564).
NJ Transit’s biggest project, the ARC passenger rail tunnel under the Hudson River, made great advances in 2008, and the state can fully fund its portion of the project after making the innovative decision to use New Jersey Turnpike Authority toll increases to fund the transit tunnel. If NJ Transit receives final approval on environmental documents, which could happen in the next few weeks, it would be eligible to receive federal transit funding and move forward. Similarly, the federal stimulus package expected under the Obama administration also has the potential to spur construction in 2009.
NJTransit took a leap toward bus rapid transit with the April premiere of GoBus in Newark. Servicing the 4.8-mile corridor between Irvington Bus Terminal and Newark Penn Station, the new line offered improved seating, lighting and passenger information displays, streamlined service with fewer stops, and redesigned user-friendly shelters among other amenities. It proved so popular that NJ Transit doubled service a mere 5 months later.
In the fall, NJ Transit began construction of a new Hudson-Bergen Light Rail station, at 8th Street in Bayonne. Unfortunately, the agency also approved the first phase of the Lackawanna Cutoff rail project, planning to build a station in the sparsely developed Highlands that could induce greenfield construction and is not projected to attract many riders.
On another disappointing note, the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission voted in April to allow the construction of a 4,280-space parking garage and a 1,094-space surface lot near NJ Transit’s Secaucus Junction rail station.
Overall Trend in 2008: Up. Securing funding and completing the ARC Tunnel environmental study are major accomplishments, and it’s good to see the agency getting involved in innovative bus projects like GoBus.
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The Parkway widening will put development pressure on areas of the Pinelands, such as around Interchange 69 in Ocean Township. (Google satellite image.)
The unnecessary widening of the Garden State Parkway between exits 67 and 80 moved one step closer to reality last Friday when the Pinelands Commission stamped its approval on the [...]
The Turnpike widening will double the number of lanes between exits 6 and 8A. (New lanes are in gray.)
Yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer included an interesting piece on the NJ Turnpike Authority’s planned widening of the NJ Turnpike, which would add up to three lanes in each direction between exits 6 and 9 and [...]
After two plans to raise tolls on the NJ Turnpike and Garden State Parkway to fund transportation projects met with intense public controversy, it seems that a plan may finally pass. In a letter sent to Gov. Corzine earlier this week, NJDOT Commissioner and NJ Turnpike Authority Chairman Kris Kolluri outlined adjustments to NJTA’s [...]
If the ARC project, which includes new rail tracks (shown in red above) in Secaucus and under the Hudson River, will reduce traffic on the NJ Turnpike, it can probably be funded with toll revenues.
A debate over the legality of funding the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) rail tunnel with toll [...]
Yesterday, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority sent a letter to Governor Corzine proposing a 50% toll increase on the NJ Turnpike, Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City Expressway in 2009, with tolls continuously increasing over the next 15 years. The plan comes a few months after the death in Trenton of Governor Corzine’s ambitious [...]
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) has posted official responses to public comments made on the NJ Turnpike expansion project, which would complete the dual-dual configuration (two 3-lane roadways in each direction) by adding up to 3 lanes in each direction between exits 6 and 9, an addition of 170 lane miles. Not surprisingly, the response document offers vague platitudes, ignores new data, and continues to refuse any solution to congestion that doesn’t include more pavement – making it the perfect companion piece to the original Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
Tri-State has challenged several aspects of the project’s EIS, which found there would be no significant environmental impact (see MTR # 565). Most unconvincing is the NJTA’s evidence that the project is necessary as proposed and that it will provide sustainable congestion relief. Critically, the Authority ignores and fails to analyze whether additional lanes will fill with traffic due to induced demand and contribute to sprawl development (which leads to more congestion, and so on). These have been the historic consequences of highway construction and widening throughout the U.S.
The NJTA response document can be found here. Some notable passages are summarized below:
Purpose and Need
At the heart of any large project is a demonstrable purpose and need. According to the EIS, the purpose and need for the Turnpike widening is “to service existing and future travel demand.” The project assumes annual traffic growth of 2.4% northbound and 3.4% southbound between 2005 and 2032. Yet data we obtained from the Authority show that, since 2004, traffic volumes have leveled off in the project area, calling into question the project’s premise.
In response to a comment from a private citizen that the traffic data, based largely on numbers from 2005-2006, was stale and did not account for the effects of gas prices and the collapse of the housing market, the NJTA defends the timeliness of its data. It’s true that many large projects use numbers that are further out of date (see the Garden State Parkway widening). However, NJTA goes on to state “there is no strong evidence that these numbers have significantly changed over the last two years due to the economic issues stated in the comment.” This is simply false.
Alternatives to Widening
Large project proposals also require analysis of reasonable alternatives. In response to Tri-State’s comment that the Authority’s alternatives analysis was cursory and sometimes provided no analysis at all, the NJTA issued a blanket denial, stating that “alternatives were considered seriously in the EIS. … Sufficient analysis was included in the EIS to conclude that the alternatives are either not practicable from a feasiblility standpoint or would not reduce the needed additions in lane capacity to meet demand, safety, and operations requirements.” Here is the EIS’s treatment of ridesharing as an alternative in its entirety, which clearly lacks any analysis:
Ridesharing refers to strategies that encourage carpooling and vanpooling. Carpooling refers to the arrangement of a group of commuters that rideshare in a participant’s vehicle. Vanpools are generally similar to a carpool; however, instead of using a participant’s automobile, the group uses a van that can be supplied by employers, non-profit transportation advocacy groups or government agencies, with operating costs typically divided among group members and sometimes subsidized by the state and federal government. Depending upon the type of vehicles used, the capacity of a vanpool can be higher than a carpool. Carpools and vanpools tend to be most effective when they run on pre-determined fixed schedules and the number of occupied vehicle seats is maximized.
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Masthead Mobilizing the Region is published by the staff of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
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