Don’t Widen the Turnpike

A year ago, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority released a plan to widen the New Jersey Turnpike Extension through Jersey City. Estimated to cost over $10 billion, the plan has earned the support of a series of construction industry groups, unions, and the state’s governor — and has run up against vigorous resistance in Jersey City itself, where the widened road will displace residents in working class communities of color while adding to the area’s air quality problems. Needless to say, this proposal is inadvisable. Time and again, research has shown that highway widenings rarely reduce congestion, and instead just drive the number of cars on the road — and with them, emissions and accidents — upward. Highway widening’s history of failure should be enough to dismiss this project out of hand, but analyzing the specific rationales for the project put forth by the NJTA make the case against the road even stronger. Rather than being the solution to any of the region’s pressing transport problems, this proposal is a $10 billion dead end. 

Map via NJTA. Note the location of the different exits, and that 14C includes traffic exiting the highway at Columbus Boulevard as well as at Jersey Avenue, where the road feeds into the Holland Tunnel.

The “Need”

In their environmental assessment, the NJTA says the following about the need for the project:

These investments are necessary to maintain structures comprising the NBHCE and accommodate recent and future increases in travel demand along the corridor. This increased demand is associated primarily with the new deep water port operations and freight handling facilities along the Bayonne waterfront and redevelopment of major sections of Jersey City and the City of Bayonne. The anticipated increase in commercial vehicular traffic, as well as existing and growing passenger vehicle traffic, will place new travel demands on the entire length of the NBHCE [Newark Bay-Hudson County Extension, the full name of the Turnpike Extension] mainline and Interchanges 14A, 14B, and 14C that are critical to accessing Hudson County and New York City.

The statement identifies two major rationales for widening the highway: the growth of the port in Bayonne, and the growth of Jersey City. It is true that both the port and the city are growing—but it does not then follow that we need to widen the highway that feeds them.

Reality

Traffic volumes on the Turnpike extension have remained stagnant. While traffic volumes did increase temporarily during the protracted Pulaski Skyway reconstruction project, they actually were in decline beforehand, and have stabilized at around their 2011 levels after the Skyway project’s completion—despite Jersey City and Bayonne growing by a combined 17 percent between 2010 and 2020.

When looking at the individual flows of traffic on the Turnpike, the image of highway traffic gets more complicated, but no more supportive of the NJTA’s vision. Again, contrary to the idea that population growth begets more driving, vehicle volumes at exits 14B and C—those which serve rapidly growing neighborhoods of Jersey City, as well as the Holland Tunnel—are at or below their low points for the last decade. Traffic increases, such as they exist on the Turnpike Extension, are coming entirely from Exit 14A, the connection that links the Turnpike to the port, Bayonne, and Staten Island.

While it might be tempting to read 14A’s growth as a vindication of the NJTA’s claims about port traffic, 14A’s recent growth has been driven almost entirely by cars using the exit. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of autos moving from 14A to points north along the Turnpike Extension rose by about 30 percent, while traffic volumes between 14A and points south and west on the highway network remained near their Skyway shutdown highs through the pandemic. Few simple explanations exist for that growth. Some of it is likely related to the completion of capacity-constraining construction projects at exit 14A itself in 2018 and the Bayonne Bridge in 2019. And, to the NJTA’s credit, some of it is likely related to new transit-poor developments along the Bayonne waterfront. But even with these increases, the fact remains that the aggregate number of new users at 14A is small; their increasing numbers barely offset declines in traffic further north. 

Remarkably, throughout this period, the number of trucks using 14A to access Bayonne’s port facilities and industries has remained small. Despite a 45 percent increase in tonnage at Port Jersey in Bayonne, trucks’ share of all traffic using Exit 14A remains well below 10 percent. This is to say: given that past freight growth has had relatively minor impacts on overall highway traffic volumes, the NJTA’s “anticipated” freight traffic increases are unlikely to add enough trucks to significantly stress the highway. Make no mistake: ensuring efficient access to the port is a matter of great importance, and planners must understand the freight flow that those trucks represent as an important stakeholder in the region’s transport network. Nevertheless, the notion that truck traffic growth justifies highway widenings here seems flawed: in both absolute and incremental terms, demands on the Turnpike’s capacity today come overwhelmingly from cars. 

Whatever the NJTA’s claims might be, then, traffic data simply do not support highway widening. Indeed, there is good reason to expect that the next decade will bring traffic declines in Hudson County. With the recent approval of congestion pricing in New York, ongoing efforts to calm traffic in Jersey City, and the trend towards building less parking in Hudson County housing developments, the usefulness and user base of the Turnpike Extension will shrink. Traffic models are famously bad at predicting stable traffic volumes; here, again, they seem to have erred in their estimates.

Alternatives: Mass Transit

We do not need to widen the Turnpike. But if Northern New Jersey is to continue growing at anything approaching its current rate, it will need better transportation. Unlike Turnpike traffic, mass transit use in North Jersey is growing, with Hudson County’s PATH and Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system posting ridership increases through the 2010s. Nevertheless, there are barriers to greater use. While the region currently enjoys relatively good rail and bus links to and from Midtown Manhattan at peak hours, travel at other times of day and to other destinations can be difficult, pushing people into their cars. Offering better transit alternatives to would-be drivers will require remedying those problems as the region continues its growth. 

Transit’s frequency and ability to link people to jobs and services is considerably weaker west of the Hudson than east of it. All access maps created using the r5r package in R.

Possibly the lowest hanging fruit among alternatives for highway widening is increasing off-peak transit frequencies in Hudson and Essex Counties. Historically, mass transit planning in New Jersey has catered primarily to peak-hour commuters heading to regional business districts, leaving riders destined for other points at other times of day with fewer options. Especially in the post-COVID environment of reduced commuting and increased leisure travel, that deficiency is important to correct. Matters are especially dire near the Turnpike’s corridor in Hudson County. Since 2006, when Jersey City and Bayonne had considerably fewer people than they do today, off-peak rail transit frequencies have fallen precipitously thanks to service reductions during the Great Recession, long-term construction projects, and COVID. Despite significant investments in longer trains on both the Hudson Bergen Light Rail system and PATH, and new signaling on PATH, not a single rail route through the county runs as many off-peak trains on weekends as it did before 2008. Nor is the situation much better on New Jersey’s commuter trains. Off-peak service to and from Hoboken terminal (just north of downtown Jersey City) generally runs once an hour or less on each line, and access to many important destinations on the commuter network requires transferring to trains from Penn Station—all of which are currently frequency-limited by repairs to Amtrak’s tunnels under the Hudson River. The agency’s buses provide moderately better service, but do so on a network of routes which both focuses its energies on carrying passengers to and from New York, and dilutes high overall levels of bus service with nearly endless route permutations. 

NJT service data from here and here; PATH data from here and here.

Especially given that the PATH network is controlled by the Port Authority, which is legally forbidden from using tax dollars to fund its operations, providing funding for more off-peak trains across the PATH and NJT may require broader changes to transit and public authority legal structures. Nevertheless, for the sake of the entire region, better off peak transit is critical: by making transit an attractive alternative for all types of trips at all times of day, leaders can help shift New Jerseyans away from driving.

Of course, simply running more buses and trains can reach a point of diminishing returns if one has underinvested in infrastructure. While North Jersey seems primed for major commuter rail expansions with the Gateway Project’s new Hudson River tunnels and a long (albeit only partially funded) list of accompanying infrastructure improvements, those improvements will do comparatively little for the Turnpike Extension’s user base. Only 21 percent of the highway’s traffic destined for the Holland Tunnel during the morning peak; the transit improvements required to shift drivers away from the road are really those to and between Hudson County points. Some of these fixes might be relatively cheap. Expanded or discounted transit service to Newark Airport for workers, new bus lanes, better integration between PATH and New Jersey Transit services, and Hudson-Bergen Light Rail speed improvements could all likely be implemented for a small fraction of the cost of a new highway to immense benefit for regional riders. But advocates should not let their ambitions for transit remain so small. Whether it be extending the light rail system to Staten Island, a Springfield Avenue rail transit route in Newark and Irvington, or even a subway down the spine of Hudson County, the Turnpike Extension’s hinterland is rife with opportunities for investment in better transit. 

Alternatives: Freight

While truck volumes over the Turnpike Extension have not achieved the levels or growth rates that would make them truly credible motivators of highway expansion, that does not mean their problems are unimportant. Lurking behind the Turnpike Extension’s planning process is an upcoming decision point in the future of the Northern New Jersey port. In their master plan for the future of the port, the Port Authority outlined two broad visions for the port’s future. In the first, the Authority would focus its expansion efforts in Newark and Elizabeth, at the historic core of the port. In the second, it would shift the port’s center of gravity to the docks at Bayonne, adding terminal capacity in an area with fewer navigational constraints. The authority has yet to select from between its plans, but if they do proceed with the Bayonne plan, truck volumes on the Turnpike from 14A to points west will increase: only about 10 percent of the port’s containerized cargo leaves the region on trains. Given those potential truck traffic impacts on the Turnpike, port planners should make their decisions while paying close attention to highway capacity: the future growth of the port should not create the need for additional highway expansion in densely populated areas.

Irrespective of what plan the Authority ends up choosing, there is more that officials could do to mitigate truck traffic around the docks. The lion’s share of the freight moving by truck off the docks is destined for nearby warehouses which feed the New York consumer market. While in most cases, these volumes will be difficult to convert to other modes, the port has seen some success subsidizing short-haul barge services to carry containers around the harbor. One such barge shuttle already links Brooklyn with Port Newark; if container volumes at Bayonne continue to grow, the Port Authority could conceivably set up another such service between Bayonne and points elsewhere in the region. Port planners might also consider funding short-haul rail services between the port and the fast-growing warehouse clusters around Allentown and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. New York’s notoriously expensive trucking market already makes slightly longer rail hauls (to Worcester and Syracuse) possible without government support; while moving containers to Allentown and Harrisburg might require some subsidy, the involved costs will almost certainly be smaller than that of adding more highway capacity across New Jersey. 

Conclusion

For over seventy years, the default response of American transportation planners to congestion has been to add highway capacity. And for over seventy years, Americans’ daily travel has been getting more difficult. The Turnpike Extension’s proposed widening is just one in a long list of similarly inadvisable proposals under consideration today; if we are to save the environment—let alone enhance the function of our cities’ transportation networks—we need to learn new planning habits before it is too late.