Legal challenges against congestion pricing continue hours before start date
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NEW YORK (PIX11) -- With hours to go until Sunday's planned start, the future of congestion pricing was back in court Saturday morning and Friday evening.
It is set to begin at midnight tonight. A circuit court denied the last emergency appeal.
On Friday in Newark, Judge Leo Gordon recessed court around 4:30 p.m. and had conferences with lawyers into the evening before ruling against the state of New Jersey's request.
Opponents asked for a temporary restraining order to stop it.
Both sides presented arguments, and the judge asked questions in the hearing that ran about an hour and a half. The judge pressed the attorney for New Jersey about case law and rule-making procedures.
The case was first brought in April by opponents citing environmental and health concerns.
The state of New Jersey and opponents of the plan are calling the judge "the last line of defense."
Attorney Randy Mastro argued the judge needs to stop it since he raised some environmental concerns in a ruling on Monday.
The MTA says the judge's first ruling from Monday requested more information and the MTA is going to provide that.
Justin Balik is a Climate and Transit Advocate.
"It's proven, tested and ready to go. It's time for our leaders to get out of the way. We need to move things forward. We have a climate crisis and a transit crisis," he said.
Congestion pricing will fund $130 million in air quality and asthma projects. It specifies in the Bronx and other areas.
The judge has told the MTA to provide more details. He also asked a lot of questions about cases cited by opponents and rule-making procedures.
His first ruling on Monday did not specifically technically say the program could not start.
The opponents argued it didn’t say the program could start.
Cases are still pending on the procedure that created it in Manhattan federal court and Long Island.
The Trump administration and some congressional Republicans have said they’ll be looking at federal regulations to see what they could do after Jan 20.