Advocates Demand New Jersey Agencies Cough Up Congestion Pricing Data

Open your hearts and open your data.

NJT and the Port Authority need to cough up some actually useful post-congestion pricing travel data so the public has a full picture of the new toll's impact on the region, advocates on both sides of the Hudson River said on Thursday.

In a pair of letters sent to the leadership of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and NJ Transit, the so-called "Sunshine Coalition" of more than 30 organizations from both the Garden State and Empire State asked agencies under control or partial control of Gridlock Gov. Phil Murphy for data on travel patterns since the toll launched in January, including:

• Daily and weekly ridership data from every NJ Transit train, bus, and para-transit line — including crossings into the congestion relief zone, ideally broken out by hour.
• Daily and weekly vehicle use on the mainline of the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, broken down by type of vehicle, exit and time of day. 
• Daily and weekly revenue data for the Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, broken down by toll plaza and exits.
• All available vehicular-caused air pollution data statewide, broken out by county.
• Daily and weekly ridership data on PATH trains, buses and para-transit for 2023, 2024 and 2025, separated out by line and by time of day.
• On-time performance for PATH trains and buses and customer journey and travel times for 2023, 2024 and 2025. 
• Daily and weekly vehicle crossing data, broken down by type of transportation and hour, from every Port Authority bridge and tunnel for 2023, 2024 and 2025. This data should include crossings into the Manhattan congestion relief zone.

The data is more necessary than ever as officials seek to evaluate the impact of congestion pricing on travel times and travel patterns in the New York City region. The MTA, which operates congestion pricing, has filled much of that picture on its own — the data under New Jersey's control is the missing link.

"We've been hearing a lot from commuters traveling from New Jersey into Manhattan about their commutes, but we don't have the full picture because we don't have all the data," said Tri-State Transportation Campaign Director of Climate and Equity Policy Jaqi Cohen.

"We have a lot of data from the MTA, and we know that [the Port Authority and NJ Transit] are collecting this data," Cohen said. "Obviously, it's early in the program, but we still think that having that data can better inform transportation decisions that are made across the state."

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy opposed congestion pricing at every step of the way until its launch in January. Murphy lawsuit to stop the program on environmental impact grounds failed. Since its launch, he has sided with President Trump's extra-legal effort to kill the toll.

Despite that, several New Jersey groups were among the 30 signatories on the letter calling for transparency — including New Jersey Policy Perspective, Make the Road NJ, NJ Sierra Club, New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition, Environmental New Jersey, League of Women Voters NJ and more.

Other signatories included Reinvent Albany, Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the Regional Plan Association.

NJ Transit and the Port Authority do publish some user data, but it's not shared in a way that anyone would call "open data" or classify as "ongoing" or "timely," as the letters demand.

The Port Authority, a bi-state agency jointly run by New York and New Jersey, publishes average PATH train ridership by hour for every month, but on a delay in PDF form. Port bridge and tunnel crossing volumes are also eventually published, but also only in PDF form and on a delay.

The agency says this is in order to better reconcile the data. Advocates say that the agency needs to speed up the process.

"I think it's a matter of priorities.The MTA has actually been releasing the crossing data for a long time, this isn't some new effort," said Reinvent Albany Senior Policy Advisory Rachael Fauss. "It's just a matter of publishing it. Whatever reconciling needs to be done shouldn't take months."

NJ Transit doesn't fare much better. Ridership and revenue figures are published in monthly board meetings and its "Performance by the Numbers" page only shares statistics about on-time performance, mean distance between failures and trip cancellation reasons.

The MTA, in contrast, has been pumping out extraordinarily specific open data sets since congestion pricing began, including an interactive website that shows how many vehicles enter the tolling zone, broken down by type of vehicle, entry location and time of day. The MTA also publishes many more open data streams — including one that lists bridge and tunnel traffic broken down by crossing, time of day and vehicle type.

It wasn't always that way at the MTA, however. The authority yielded to public pressure to allow for a more thorough look at what was going on, Cohen said.

"The MTA didn't always release this data, there was a lot of advocacy around getting them to be more transparent in their operations, and they were pushed in the right direction," she said. "I think that the agencies on the other side of the river need to be pushed in the right direction as well."

More transparency at the agencies would also prevent concern-trolling stunts like Murphy's recent letter to the Port Authority demanding the agency — which, recall, he half-controls — provide data to show that congestion pricing was hurting the agency.

"Murphy asked for all that data and it was ridiculous, because you control the Port Authority. So it's just the basic principle that the MTA has daily ridership and bridge crossing data. Why doesn't the Port Authority," said Fauss.

Port Authority spokesman Seth Stein said the agency is reviewing the letter. Reps for NJ Transit said said the agency was filtering the letter through the state's open records request system.