* Motor Voters After doing right by NYC transit riders with the recent announcement of unlimited-ride transit passes and last year’s free bus-subway transfers, NY Governor Pataki may have felt pressure to provide new benefits to drivers this year. The election-year executive budget the Governor released this week provides a $200 million increase in road and bridge work during the next two fiscal years. Funds available for NY State DOT engineering work will also increase. The Governor said the increases will create 3,500 new jobs. Closer to drivers’ pocketbooks, Governor Pataki also proposes a 25% reduction — $13 — in car registration fees. The budget estimates the change will reduce state-collected motorist fees by $50 million per year.

In crafting its proposals, the Pataki Administration may also have had an eye on driver frustration vented (primarily over high insurance rates) during last year’s gubernatorial race in New Jersey. Fallout from NJ motorist anger continued to manifest last week when Governor Whitman and the legislature reached agreement on raising the speed limit on selected interstates to 65 mph. Whitman, who had maintained firm opposition to the increase during her first term, was outflanked by strong majority support for the increase in the legislature. Lawmakers explicitly drew on last fall’s driver angst in pressing the measure. Nonetheless, Whitman managed to preserve her misgivings about higher speeds in the deal. Whereas most states have enacted straightforward speed limit increases, Gov. Whitman negotiated inclusion of a number of qualifiers.

The speed limit increase will undergo an 18-month trial period, after which NJDOT may recommend changes to the law. The bill enacting the speed increase also doubled penalties for aggressive driving offenses and for traveling 10 mph or more over the limit. Still, a 1996 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states that "A wealth of research has established a clear relationship between highway speed limits and fatalities...[speed monitoring studies] suggest that significant increases in highway crash fatalities, injuries and injury severity should be expected."

· The Bicycle Ballot The biggest percentage and policy change winners this budget season look to be New Jersey bicyclists and pedestrians (even though NJ’s executive budget is not yet out). In her inaugural address Tuesday, Governor Whitman called for construction of 2,000 miles of bikeways (over 10 years) and for better pedestrian environments around schools and senior centers. The Governor pledged $15 million to get these initiatives underway this year, possibly a significant commitment since bike/ped projects have until now been excluded from capital funding except for reliance on highly competitive ISTEA "enhancement" funding. For several years, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign has pressured the Whitman Administration — the Governor describes herself as an avid bicyclist — to live up to the goals of the excellent NJ "Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan" NJDOT published in 1995. NJDOT also recently began an analysis of engineering treatments capable of reducing NJ pedestrian fatalities in the near-term. The latter development is at least in part due to publication last September by the Campaign and NJPIRG of a report (Walking Away — available on the Campaign web page, or see MTR #145) that focused on high NJ pedestrian fatality rates and the absence of state action to address them.

The Governor situated her bicycle and pedestrian initiative in the context of a "strategic transportation plan for the 21st Century" that will address transit expansion and should be released in the next two months. It is also related to a new anti-sprawl campaign that the Governor said would, with open space acquisition, expedited development approvals for municipalities complying with the State Plan and other Plan-strengthening measures, buoy urban areas and preserve farms and woodlands.

·Transit Taxpayers In addition to increasing road funds, Governor Pataki also proposes boosting state support to the MTA by $132.7 million. Nearly $30 million is for commuter rail lines, the rest for the Transit Authority. In NJ, it would be a big surprise if Governor Whitman’s budget failed to maintain the 7-year lid on NJ Transit fares.

 

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