Yesterday's legislative approval of NJ Transportation Trust Fund bills capped four years of campaigning for an effective "fix-it-first" roadway investment policy, led by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. This year's legislative success was based on a strong outreach effort to lawmakers and effective marshalling of editorial opinion around the state in favor of policies promoting road repair and greater transportation choice. Six daily newspapers, including the Bergen Record, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Trenton Times endorsed the Campaign's proposed Trust Fund amendments, or their general approach to transportation spending.

The effort received strong support in Trenton from the New Jersey Environmental Lobby, NJPIRG Citizen Lobby, the NJ Sierra Club and the NJ Environmental Federation. Around the state, staff and members from Association of NJ Environmental Commissions, American Littoral Society, Bike NJ, Environmental Defense, Great Swamp Watershed Assn., the League of American Bicyclists and Transport Workers Union Local 225 all pitched in. The NJ Conservation Foundation used its regular column in smaller newspapers to promote the reform agenda.

The New Jersey State Senate and State Assembly each passed a $3.6 billion four-year transportation capital spending measure that contains new policy guidelines designed to channel roadway spending into needed maintenance work, requires legislative approval for new alignment highways and requires NJDOT to develop a 1,000-mile bikeway network (see MTR #'s 275, 276)

"In enacting this bill, New Jersey joins a handful of other states taking clear action to fix roads and bridges, set barriers against more sprawl development and clear the air and the roads through more effective transportation," Tri-State Campaign executive director Janine Bauer told the Star-Ledger.

The measure is now with Governor Whitman, who is expected to sign it. A revenue provision in the bill will be put before voters in November, because it constitutionally dedicates tax revenues now used for other purposes to the Transportation Trust Fund.