Tri-State Transportation Campaign

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Tri-State Transportation Campaign

Company type	Non-profit
Industry	Non-profit and activism
Founded	1993
Headquarters	New York, New York , United States
Key people	Renae Reynolds (Executive Director)[1]
Revenue	321,962 United States dollar (2016)
Total assets	500,325 United States dollar (2022)
Website	www.tstc.org

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC) is a non-profit advocacy and policy organization dedicated to reducing car and truck dependency and promoting a more environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically efficient transportation network in downstate New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.^[1] Its methods include policy analysis, original research, media advocacy, and community organizing.

TSTC was launched in 1993 by a coalition of the region's leading environmental and planning organizations, including the Regional Plan Association (RPA), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).^[2] Its creation was a direct response to the passage of the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991. This landmark legislation marked a significant shift from the highway-building focus of the preceding decades by decentralizing power to state and local authorities, introducing flexible funding that allowed highway funds to be used for mass transit and pedestrian projects, and mandating public participation in the planning process. TSTC was founded to leverage these new opportunities and translate the act's progressive principles into tangible change at the metropolitan level.

The Campaign's 1993 founding document, the "Citizens Action Plan," established an audacious goal: to reduce regional vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 15% by the year 2007.^[2] This objective represented a radical departure from traditional transportation planning, which typically prioritized increasing vehicle speed and reducing delay, often by expanding road capacity. By focusing on VMT reduction, TSTC reframed the measure of success to prioritize sustainability and efficiency over auto-centric metrics. The plan outlined a three-pronged strategy to achieve this goal: improving public transit, implementing economic incentives to manage road use, and adopting land use policies that promote development near transit centers.^[2]

From its inception, TSTC engaged in a long-term battle against highway expansion, challenging the powerful road-building lobby through grassroots organizing, technical analysis, and legal action. The organization's persistent analysis of state spending, particularly in New Jersey, has been credited with helping to engineer a monumental policy reversal. In the mid-1990s, over 50 percent of the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT)'s capital budget was dedicated to highway expansion projects. Following more than a decade of TSTC's advocacy for a "fix-it-first" approach that prioritizes the maintenance of existing infrastructure, that figure had plummeted to just 1.5 percent by 2008.

In recent years, TSTC has focused on modernizing the region's fragmented rail network, advocating for a paradigm shift from a 20th-century "commuter rail" model to a 21st-century "regional rail" system. The organization argues the current system, composed of the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, and NJ Transit, operates as three separate, disconnected networks that inefficiently terminate at dead-end stations in Manhattan. This creates a "terminal trap" that severely constrains capacity, as trains occupy valuable platform space for extended periods.

TSTC advocates for adopting a through-running operational model, the global standard for efficient metropolitan rail as seen in the Paris RER, London's Elizabeth Line and Thameslink, and the Munich S-Bahn. In this model, trains pass through the central business district to destinations on the opposite side of the region, dramatically increasing station capacity by slashing dwell times.

This philosophical battle has centered on the future of Penn Station, where two competing visions have emerged to handle new capacity from the Gateway Program tunnels.

• Amtrak's "Penn South" Expansion: Amtrak, the station's owner, has championed a plan to build a massive new terminal annex on the block south of the existing station. This would add up to a dozen new stub-end tracks at a projected cost of up to $16.7 billion, perpetuating the inefficient terminal operating model and requiring the demolition of an entire city block.
• The "Tri-State Solution": In a 2022 report, TSTC put forward a more surgical, efficiency-focused alternative.^[3][4] This hybrid plan calls for a limited, two-track southern expansion while reconfiguring the existing station's central core for through-running by widening platforms. Proponents estimate this approach would cost under $7 billion—a saving of over $9 billion—while delivering greater train capacity.

The conflict intensified in August 2024 when Amtrak-hired consultants presented an analysis at a public forum concluding the Tri-State Solution was unworkable. Advocates and journalists alleged the model used flawed assumptions, particularly regarding train dwell times, to guarantee a negative outcome.^[5] The controversy was heightened by public tax filings showing that the forum's co-host, the Regional Plan Association, was operating under a renewed and increased $850,000 grant from Amtrak to advocate for the Gateway Program, creating a perception of a conflict of interest. Despite the debate, the core concepts of the TSTC proposal were subsequently included as a distinct "Hybrid" alternative in the official environmental review process for the Penn Station Capacity Expansion project.^[6]

At the local level, TSTC advocates for policies that reclaim streets as safe public spaces. As chair of the Vision Zero New Jersey Alliance, the organization championed a state bill to establish a "Target Zero Commission" tasked with creating a statewide action plan to eliminate all roadway deaths by 2040.^[7] The bill was signed into law by Governor Phil Murphy in January 2025.^[8] This work is based on the Vision Zero philosophy, which holds that traffic fatalities are preventable failures of the transportation system, not inevitable accidents.

TSTC was also a lead advocate for the passage of New York’s Complete Streets law in 2012. This policy requires that roadways be designed to enable safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities.

In 2022, TSTC's "Bidding for a Better Bee-Line" campaign in Westchester County exemplified its data-driven approach. The organization published a report revealing that the Bee-Line Bus System's decades-long, non-competitive contract with a single private operator had resulted in significantly higher operating costs and inefficiencies—such as excessive "deadhead" miles—compared to peer systems.^[9] The report also exposed contractual "poison pills" designed to stifle competition. Following TSTC's advocacy, Westchester issued a new, fully competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) for the bus contract for the first time in its history in 2023, which included specific performance metrics to ensure accountability.^[10]

TSTC frames transportation policy as central to achieving climate and social equity goals. As a member of the ElectrifyNY coalition, it has campaigned for the "Clean Deliveries Act," state legislation that would require large e-commerce warehouse operators to mitigate their environmental impact by transitioning their fleets to zero-emission vehicles.^[11] The legislation targets the disproportionate siting of fulfillment centers and their resulting truck pollution in low-income communities and communities of color.

The organization is also a key member of the coalition supporting congestion pricing in New York City. TSTC argues the policy is progressive, as it reduces traffic and pollution while generating billions of dollars for the MTA, which serves the vast majority of commuters to the congestion zone, who are on average less wealthy than those who drive.

TSTC played a crucial role in persuading public officials to cancel or scale back several major highway expansion proposals that once seemed inevitable.

• Route 92: This proposed freeway in central New Jersey was terminated in 2006 by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority after years of sustained opposition from a coalition including TSTC, environmental groups, and local municipalities, who argued the project would destroy critical open space and wetlands.
• Cross-Westchester Expressway (I-287) Widening: In 1997, Governor George Pataki withdrew a state proposal to add lanes to this highway in Westchester County. TSTC and its allies successfully argued that the widening would induce more driving and undermine public transit investments.
• Goethals Bridge Replacement: While the project to replace the bridge connecting Staten Island and New Jersey moved forward, TSTC's advocacy contributed to a final design that incorporated a dedicated path for pedestrians and bicyclists and was engineered to accommodate a potential future transit line.

• www.tstc.org
• blog.tstc.org, Mobilizing the Region blog