The New Jersey Turnpike Authority plans to spend $4.7 billion to widen the I-78 highway through Hudson County. This plan will do nothing but harm the people of New Jersey and waste billions in doing so.
Tell Governor Murphy, his handpicked Turnpike Authority Chair Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, and your legislators this is a terrible plan. We need them to do everything they can to stop it.
This plan, which was unanimously opposed by the Jersey City Council, Mayor Fulop, and the Hoboken Council:
- Poisons the air - Hudson County is a dense urban area that already has one of highest asthma rates in the state. The amount of added exhaust fumes, fine particulates, and tire dust that will be added to the air is a public health emergency. I78 has dozens of schools along it where children are being sentenced to a life of respiratory problems.
- Harms the climate - Governor Murphy set a goal to reduce greenhouse emissions by 50% of 2006 levels by 2030. By expanding a highway to have more cars and trucks sit in traffic spewing emissions NJTA and NJDOT directly undermine that directive. Environmental groups have filed petitions against the NJTA for not following the executive order.
- Makes traffic worse - The NJTA will tell you that this project is meant to alleviate traffic. Decades of research, however, tell us that wider roads lead to more traffic. Making the claim even more preposterous is that I78 ends at the Holland Tunnel which is not getting any wider. More cars in even more gridlock.
- A direct attack on environmental justice communities - Not only does this highway run through some of the densest neighborhoods of the state, but it includes many designated environmental justice communities by the state of NJ. These are low income, minority communities that have already been overburdened by pollution and waste resulting from projects exactly like this one.
- Diverts money away from desperately needed public transportation projects, bikeways and walkways.
Take Action! Tell Governor Murphy, the NJTA Commissioner, and your legislators this is not how the state should be spending $4.7 billion. The funds should be invested into repairing the bridge and expanding affordable public transit powered by clean renewable energy instead of proven decades old, failed strategies.
