Well, as Governor Murphy plans the state's next step in fighting congestion pricing.

He's also facing criticism for rejecting what New York Governor Kathy Hochul called very generous offers to settle the case outside of court.

Sources within her office say new Jersey left significant money on the table during failed settlement talks.

That potentially could have propped up the beleaguered new Jersey transit system and helped prioritize other mass transit projects on the docket here.

So what exactly did the Murphy administration turn down, and how generous was it?

Politico NJ reporter Ry Rivard, spoke to sources within both administrations and joins us now with the latest.

Ry, good to talk to you.

Can you give us more details about the offers from New York?

Specifically?

You wrote about a $500 million offer.

Was that part of a preexisting agreement or was that a new proposal?

So this was during settlement talks to resolve the lawsuit that New Jersey filed to stop congestion pricing.

And that's $500 million that would have gone toward the Midtown bus terminal in Manhattan, which is obviously used by a lot of new Jersey commuters coming to and from work.

Our understanding is that New York thought this was a great deal because they hadn't committed to paying for this.

Whereas on the new Jersey side, you know, there's the impression that this is money that New York would have been paying anyway, as part of a split.

That's typically done for projects that, are Port Authority projects where you sort of split the cost of projects that are by state projects.

What else was on the table?

I can think back to, I guess it was mid-December when Hochul held a press conference, and gave us that quote about these generous offers and, and even sort of inside mentioned, you know, new Jersey transit customers stuck on their trains.

Was there money being offered to help with our own mass transit systems here?

You know, the way that the talks are described to me and the offers from New York were described to me is there wasn't a direct subsidy.

Like I think some people had the impression that there wasn't just like money that New York would be shoveling to new Jersey for new Jersey to put towards new Jersey transit.

There were things like, you know, money that would have gone towards the bus terminal that would be used, you know, by new Jersey commuters that New York offered or pledged, to prioritize the new Jersey transit parts of New York Penn Station during a redo of Penn Station.

So I think there's been the impression among critics of Murphy that that he turned down money that was directly towards, say, buying a new bus or buying a new train for new Jersey transit.

And those things really weren't on the table.

There were also discounts, or toll credits for drivers from new Jersey crossing the George Washington Bridge.

But the governor's position going back several years has been he wanted a full kind of rebate or a full discount.

And that is not something we understood that New York offered either.

Yeah.

So I guess that's subjective, just how generous it was.

Rye, the governor had a gaggle today where he addressed some of this, and he also deflected.

It almost seemed like maybe there are still some offers on the table.

Do you know anything about that?

And what's the governor's office telling you about why they may have turned some of this down.

You know, they've said that they're pursuing the litigation.

The litigation is still sort of alive.

New Jersey has basically lost to this point.

They obviously congestion pricing has already started.

But there are still things happening in court.

There's still things that can happen in court, not only in the new Jersey lawsuit, but in several others, filed by other people against congestion pricing, mostly in New York courts.

So, you know, I think there's been, as far as I can tell, a public emphasis on the court cases from the new Jersey governor's office.

In just a couple of weeks, president elect Trump will be sworn into office.

He has been a staunch critic of this.

What type of challenge does that present?

I mean, is this reversible at this point?

Once Trump gets into office?

Over in New York, representative Jerry Nadler told us a while ago that he doesn't really see a path to Congress undoing this and the path to the president undoing this.

It's a little harder to stop something once it started.

I think there was a rush to get congestion pricing done, and it it's in place.

I think there are some administrative things, as we know.

President elect Trump, you know, has promised to do a lot of aggressive things, and to, to sort of take fulsome actions across the board.

Is administration several years ago, you know, tried to do some things and they got challenged in court.

I don't really think it's clear what he'll do if it'll be among his priorities.

And you know how that would work.

Yeah.

And certainly now that the program is in effect, a lot of leverage is lost.

Very quickly.

Are the two sides still communicate communicating or Governor Murphy's office and Governor Hochul office still communicating?

I'm wondering about their relationship now that this is all happened.

I think the two governors, while they have fought over some things, generally have a very good relationship and have compartmentalized their fights and their friendships, and I've seen no real public indication that that compartmentalization has changed.

I think they're still allies in both, still Democrats, and they both still have a lot of things they want to get done for the region.

All right.

Ry Rivard, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.

Thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you.