The biggest factor in how people get around has more to do with land use than transportation assets and the relationship between the two should be much more intentional in the Garden State.
Zoe Baldwin, Vice President, State Programs, and New Jersey Director, for the
Regional Plan Association (RPA), made that case in a presentation to the NJTPA Board of Trustees at its meeting on Monday. Founded in 1922, RPA develops plans to improve the “economic health, environmental resiliency, and quality of life” of the New York City metropolitan area.
Baldwin outlined the impact of the $16-billion Gateway Program, which includes the Hudson Tunnel Project. The RPA’s recent report,
The Economic Promise of the Gateway Program, estimated that the program will generate economic impact of $230 billion for the tristate area and $170 billion nationwide in its first 15 years of operation (2045-2060). Losing one of the two tracks of the Hudson River Tunnel at this point would reduce capacity by up to 75 percent; a partial shutdown would cost the U.S. $16 billion over four years.
And Gateway is not just a tunnel; it consists of several related projects, , Baldwin said.
“The full Gateway program has major supporting projects underway including bridges, stations, loops and yards that actually make the whole system more resilient and get us where we need to go,” she said.
A 2021 report by RPA found that capacity is needed across four work-from-home (WFH) and return-to-office (RTO) scenarios. “This really isn’t about restoring service, it’s about preparing for the growth we already have. You’ve got to build ahead of need, not behind it.”
Baldwin said she started her career in what she realizes was a “golden age” of New Jersey transportation. Now-critical infrastructure projects were completed at the time, from the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail in 1996 to the Meadowlands Line in 2009.
Recessions and the cancellation of the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) tunnel in 2010 “kind of tipped the system in a way in which we haven’t recovered,” Baldwin said. “What we have to do to get back to that golden age is acknowledge the inextricable relationships between land use and transit.,” she told Board members.
This includes promoting Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) which is good for taxpayers and local budgets. “Every mile of pipe, pavement, or rail impacts a higher percentage of your residents and that’s just good finance, especially in a state that’s almost paralyzed by our property tax discussions,” Baldwin said.
About half of New Jersey residents already live within a 10-minute walk of transit. “We have this really good base, we’re not starting from scratch. We just need to plan smart, remove some of our outdated barriers, and really keep going,” Baldwin said.
“Everyone likes demanding that transit should be efficient and roads be less congested, and then we’re making land use decisions at the local level that do not support any of these improvements. We really need to be much more intentional about these relationships.” She praised NJTPA programs that are supporting Complete Streets and other measures to improve local land use.
A recording of the
presentation is available here.