The report released during the shortened Thanksgiving week by Governor McGreevey’s commission on transportation finance not only calls for raising the state gas tax, as we reported in #438, but also depicts a system badly in need of increased investment. It recommends boosting funding by $520 million a year.

The commission says restoring the state’s bridges, highways, and rail lines to a state of good repair should be the state’s top priority. Currently 53 percent of highway pavement in New Jersey is rated structurally inadequate, and will require $10 billion over ten years to restore. Thirteen percent of bridges maintained by the state are in unacceptable condition and will cost $700 million annually over the next decade. And NJ Transit – which has long been forced to use its capital budget to cover operating expenses – requires $490 million per year to restore its bus and rail system.

The commission also recommends boosting investment in rail freight to $30 million annually and providing $7 billion over ten years to expand core transit capacity. Higher capacity on both freight and commuter rail lines will help cope with a boom in population and jobs over the next decade.

But given the magnitude of New Jersey’s transportation needs and the impending insolvency of the state’s Transportation Trust Fund, the commission also stressed the importance of heightened responsibility in spending.

At NJ DOT, the commission recommends capping spending on new highway capacity at 4 percent of annual spending, or $180 million per year. In the past, "Hundreds of millions have been spent on highway expansion projects that have led to the proliferation of sprawl development and added traffic congestion." Mitigating this congestion has, in turn, required hundreds of millions more.

The commission also wants to cap, at current levels, the diversion of revenue from capital budgets to funding for maintenance and operations at DOT and NJ Transit and eliminate this practice in ten years. Infrastructure improvements have lagged horribly because of the meager appropriation of general fund money for operating expenses.

The commission says bonding should be limited to no more than 50 percent of the Transportation Trust Fund capital program and for establishing an independent oversight committee to enforce the new financial standards. 

MTR back issues:

Go to index of all Mobilizing the Region back issues