In a June 11 decision, a panel of judges from the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court ruled that the New Jersey Department of Transportation had broken the state Transportation Trust Fund renewal law of 2000 by failing to develop strategic transportation plans and information required by the law.

The ruling decides a case brought by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and other groups against the NJ Dept. of Transportation and state government over compliance with the 2000 transportation planning and funding law. The court’s opinion said: "The NJDOT has failed to comply literally or in spirit with the reporting mandates" of the Trust Fund Renewal Act.

The Trust Fund Act, approved by the state legislature and acting governor Donald DiFrancesco in June, 2000, instituted strong Dept. of Transportation planning and information components in the transportation funding legislation for the first time. Goals laid out in the law were intended to refocus transportation priorities onto repair and maintenance and away from construction of new state highways.

DOT documents submitted to the legislature in March, 2001 declared the law’s goal of reducing bridge and pavement deficiency by half unattainable. The agency provided no further discussion of the goal or steps needed to move toward it.

"We find that the NJDOT, citing the impossibility of planning, funding and completing the projects within a span of four years, has failed to plan at all. Instead, it has produced only a description of a single year’s projects, selected through unstated criteria, without the benefit of articulated strategic goals. The NJDOT’s ‘[capital investment strategy]’ thus clearly violates the Legislature’s command that it engage in strategic planning, and that it articulate a plan that focuses to a significant degree upon the goal of repair of the State’s aging infrastructure," the judges wrote.

The decision orders DOT to submit a bridge and pavement repair plan to the legislature that "identifies known deficiencies, establishes priorities, project costs and provides realistic implementation goals." It also demands "a strategy for meeting the statute’s goals for construction of additional bicycle paths."

The 2000 law directed NJDOT to submit a 5-year master plan to set the direction for the NJDOT overall capital investment strategy and annual capital programs. It is to be updated each year, and is supposed to include steps toward reduction of deficient bridge and pavement conditions by half and the development of 1,000 new miles of bikeways by 2004.

The court reviewed DOT’s 2001 planning submissions: "If one were to examine the [strategy], one could not discern a scheme for allocating available resources to various transportation needs, or an articulated plan for addressing those needs. No identification exists therein of structurally deficient bridge or pavement deficiencies, proposed repair projects designed to address those deficiencies, their costs, status, or future phases."

The court cannot instruct DOT to devote its budget to particular projects or spending areas spending. However, we expect the court’s order to DOT will increase the transparency of agency spending and lead to budgeting that complies with legislative and popular support for a fix it first program. It is especially important that NJDOT complies with the court order and provides decision makers and the public with an honest and transparent evaluation of New Jersey’s transportation needs, priorities and prospects as the state faces renewal of the Transportation Trust Fund in 2004.

The plaintiffs were represented in the case by Arnold Lakind of the firm Szaferman, Lakind, Blumstein, Blader, Lehmann and Goldshore. 

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