With only 18 days to go until election day, the New Jersey Dept. of Transportation has still not released a list of the projects its proposed $500 million transportation bond issue will pay for. NJ voters will be asked to approve the measure on November's ballot. State sales tax receipts will be used to pay the bond off.

The bond issue was introduced in the legislature in the spring as funding for the state to reduce a backlog of bridge maintenance and reconstruction problems. But in June, the legislature amended the bond issue to a split between local bridge repair and general capital funding for NJ DOT projects. Since then, the Tri-State Campaign has called on DOT to tell the public what it will spend its half of the bond revenues on.

DOT said at first it would not issue a project list, but in the last week has begun to mention specific projects that the bond issue would finance.

NJ Transportation Commissioner James Weinstein told the Bergen Record last weekend that $80 million would pay for upgrading NJ Transit's Union Township station (Raritan Valley Line), Hoboken rail yard improvements and tunnel work connected with the the Hudson-Bergen light rail project. Weinstein also said another $10 million would go to bike and pedestrian projects, and that none of the remaining $160 million would be used for widening highways. "No widening...we have to find viable alternatives for people, and that's rail and light rail," the Commissioner said.

The Campaign was encouraged by the Commissioner's comments, but remains concerned that no formal, public list has been released so close to the vote.

Commissioner Weinstein has been stumping for the bond issue around the state this week, emphasizing the need to fix local bridges. The Commissioner apparently told reporters on Thursday that DOT would make a clear project list available in "four or five days." New Jersey's voters are waiting.