During late night sessions last Thursday, the New Jersey Senate and Assembly approved a 2002 budget and capital program that holds capital spending on road and bridge repair to levels proposed by the NJ Department of Transportation.The DOT has called the “fix-it-first” mandate in the 2000 Transportation Trust Fund Renewal Law — to reduce the backlog of the bridge and pavement repair projects by half within five years—“not feasible.” Advocates argue that repair goals are reachable if departmental spending priorities change to emphasize repair as directed by the new law. The $22 million allocated from the Trust Fund for bridge repair will reduce spending by more than half over last year’s budget, prepared before the Trust Fund law went into effect.

Votes on the budget bill were split mainly along party lines, with substantial Republican padded approval margins in both houses. Among the main topics of contention of dissenting Democrats during debate were fiscal mismanagement, mounting debt, and the budget’s betrayal of the Transportation Trust Fund Law. Calling the budget a “fix-it-last” bill, Senator Nicholas Sacco (D - North Bergen) said that NJ roads and bridges were failing and the budget would “keep them this way.”

Transportation advocates agree that the repair spending goals will be dangerously under funded in 2002. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign and four environmental, civic, cycling, and taxpayer groups are pursuing a lawsuit in court that seeks DOT compliance with various points of the Transportation Trust Fund Law (MTR #320). A hearing for the case is scheduled for late July.

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