Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the NJ Turnpike Authority (NJTA)?
The NJTA is a state agency responsible for administering and maintaining two toll roads: the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. Funded by tolls paid by vehicles using its highways, the NJTA has over 2100 employees and a budget of more than $2.3 billion. It is governed by an 8-person Board of Commissioners appointed by the Governor of New Jersey. Due to this governance structure, Governor Phil Murphy has complete control over the NJTA.
What is the NJTA trying to do?
The NJTA is proposing to spend $4.7 billion to reconstruct and widen the Newark Bay-Hudson County Extension (Turnpike Extension) from New Jersey Turnpike Interchange 14 in Newark to Jersey Avenue in Jersey City. The project impacts neighborhoods and communities in Newark, Bayonne, and Jersey City. The main components of the program are:
From Interchange 14 to Interchange 14A, replacing bridges and widening the roadway to provide four lanes and standard shoulders in each direction, including a new Newark Bay Bridge over the Newark Bay.
From Interchange 14A to the Columbus Drive Exit, replacing bridges and widening the roadway to three lanes and standard shoulders in each direction.
From the Columbus Drive Exit to Jersey Avenue, replacing the viaduct structure to maintain the current configuration of two lanes in each direction but providing standard shoulders.
For more detailed information on the project scope, here is NJTA’s official project fact sheet.
Will this help at all with traffic congestion?
NO!
Due to a phenomenon called induced demand, highway widenings do not actually help make traffic move faster, but instead encourage more cars to utilize the road, quickly filling up whatever new capacity was created. Economists, urban planners, and transportation engineers have studied decades of highway expansions and have documented that this ALWAYS happens when a highway is widened. These professionals have dubbed this phenomenon the Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: New roads will create new drivers, resulting in congestion staying the same. As a result, there is no way to “build your way out” of traffic congestion with wider roads or new roads.
Where do these new car trips come from? Here are some common sources of new traffic when a highway widening opens:
People taking trips they previously would not have taken before the road was expanded.
People who previously took a trip during a less busy time (such as early in the morning or midday) in order to avoid traffic congestion deciding to take that trip during rush hour instead.
People who previously took public transit or biked or walked due to traffic congestion deciding to drive instead.
Furthermore, while this project may allow the Turnpike Extension to carry more vehicles, those vehicles will still be required to exit onto either the Holland Tunnel or onto existing streets in Jersey City and Bayonne to continue their trip. There are no plans to widen the Holland Tunnel or any streets in Jersey City to accommodate this new traffic. A wider highway will just be delivering more traffic onto our already overcrowded and at-capacity streets.
If it doesn’t help traffic, what will it do?
Like all urban highways, this project will have adverse health and environmental impacts on communities through which it travels. The American Lung Association has already given Hudson County a grade of “F” for the number of days when the county violated national air quality standards. Baseline air pollution in Hudson County has left the population, the children of the region in particular, with elevated rates of asthma and respiratory issues. Adding more cars stuck in traffic spewing toxic exhaust will only exacerbate the issue. Air pollution, which will be made worse by this project, is also tied to a whole host of health issues including lung issues, cardiovascular problems, increased dementia risk, increased heart attack risks, and more.
In 2018, Governor Murphy released an executive order that, among other things, requires that all executive branch agencies like NJTA and NJDOT consider and incorporate the goals of environmental justice in their work. Two years later the NJ Department of Environmental Protection released concrete guidelines on how to follow the executive order. As part of this work a mapping tool was created to identify overburdened communities. These communities are not only low income, minority, and have low english proficiency, but they’ve also already been subjected to excessive air pollution and the associated health consequences.
Here is the map of overburdened communities that will be disregarded and harmed by NJTA’s I78 widening in direct defiance of Governor Murphy’s environmental justice executive order.
The neighborhoods of Hudson County have suffered enough and the state of NJ knows it too. NJTA, however, plans on attacking our air quality and our health anyway.
Doesn’t this also go against Governor Murphy’s Climate Goals?
YES!
EmpowerNJ, a consortium of many statewide environmental groups, filed a formal rulemaking petition asserting that the NJTA and the state Department of Transportation (NJDOT) failed to follow two different executive orders issued by Governor Murphy. The executive orders in question set out to reduce GHG emissions by 50% by 2030 and require consideration of environmental justice impacts in all official state decisions.
The rulemaking petition asserts that the Turnpike Trap and other highway projects planned by the NJTA and NJDOT Strategic Plans have not been evaluated by the respective agencies for their GHG emission and environmental justice impacts. As such, the decisions made to advance these projects is in violation of state policy. The petition further demands that both NJTA and NJDOT take the following actions to ensure compliance for this project and all others going forward:
Adopt agency rules to establish a GHG emissions reduction strategy.
Require any highway expansion project meets a climate impact test by showing it doesn’t conflict with the 2030 GHG emissions goals.
Require projects to undergo a cost-benefit analysis that considers whether the project increases or decreases traffic and vehicle miles traveled, includes potential increases in budgeted construction costs, and looks at the social and health costs of carbon and other pollution.
Adopt agency rules requiring alternatives to highway expansion be considered during the evaluation process, including public transportation investments, repair projects, street safety projects, bikeways, and walkways.
Adopt an agency policy requiring environmental justice to be studied and considered in all agency decisions.
Adopt a robust public participation process that allows early public input at the inception of a potential project.
They also want alternatives considered in addition to expansion, such as public transportation, repair projects, safe street projects, bikeways and walkways.
About those executive orders …
In November 2021, Governor Murphy issued Executive Order No. 274, which made it the official policy of the State of New Jersey to reduce GHG emissions by 50% by 2030. All executive branch agencies, including the NJTA, are supposed to coordinate the Governor’s Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy (OCAGE) to implement strategies in the state’s Energy Master Plan (EMP) for achieving this goal. One of these strategies is to leverage technology, infrastructure, and policy to decrease the GHGs emitted by the transportation sector.
In April 2018, Governor Murphy issued Executive Order No. 23, which directs executive branch agencies, including the NJTA, to consider environmental justice impacts in all of their decision making. Agencies are also ordered to follow any and all guidance developed by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to enforce this executive order.
Where can I learn more about the health impacts of urban highways?
NJ Department of Health study on asthma rates and trends in Hudson County.
Asthma in New Jersey - Hudson County
American Lung Association showing links between proximity to major roadways and increased risk of asthma and cardiovascular disease in children as well as COPD, dementia, and heart attack in adults.
Living Near Highways and Air Pollution
Center for Disease Control (CDC) research report showing causal link between highways and children having increased asthma, respiratory issues, mortality rates, and cardiovascular issues.
Residential Proximity to Major Highways
EPA on the racial disparities in air pollution exposure; people of color are subjected to more toxic air independent of their socioeconomic status.
Study Finds Exposure to Air Pollution Higher for People of Color Regardless of Region or Income
NYTimes covering the latest research showing that even low levels of fine particulates (soot) in the air can be deadly to the most vulnerable. This soot is abundant in car exhaust.
Even Low Levels of Soot Can Be Deadly to Older People, Research Finds
Where can I learn more about induced demand?
Wired article explaining induced demand and alternative methods for reducing traffic congestion.
What's Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse
Academic study demonstrating a statistically significant correlation between highway expansion and new vehicle-miles traveled.
The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US cities