New Jersey weighs options for depleted transportation fund

The State of New Jersey has been down this road before. The state transportation trust fund will be technically broke in 18 months as all the revenues it receives by then will go to pay off the loan that kept it from going broke in 2006. Yet the state will need $1.5 billion from this fund each year to keep its highways and transit systems in good shape. What to do?

That question has kept members of Gov. Chris Christie's transition team busy these past few months. Last Friday, that team issued recommendations on how to fix the fund, including one that the new governor pledged he would rule out during his election campaign: A hike in the state's 10.5 cent gasoline tax, which is among the lowest in the nation.

Acknowledging political realities, the transition team's transportation report calls for a referendum on a gas tax hike, and only "after showing that cost savings are being achieved."

Mayor Morris Duetzler of Morris Plains, a member of the transportation transition team, was blunt on the subject, telling the Daily Record of Morris County, "Reality says you're going to have to have a little increase [in the gas tax]." New Jersey's gasoline tax was last raised in 1988.

The transition team's report contained other recommendations for achieving cost savings and raising revenue besides a gas tax hike. One proposed efficiency involves combining the state's two toll road agencies, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - which runs the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway - and the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which runs the Atlantic City Expressway and Atlantic City International Airport. As a byproduct of this consolidation, the airport would be transferred to one of the bistate port operators, either the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey or the Delaware River and Bay Authority.

The transition team also recommended charging tolls on some of the state's Interstate highways, a path neighboring Pennsylvania is also pursuing to raise money for its transportation program. Federal approval would be required for this to occur, as Federal law currently forbids tolls on highways built with Interstate funding beyond a handful of demonstration projects. It also called for a change in how the state gas tax is collected, a move that would reduce collection costs and improve revenues, and for returning the income from heavy truck fees and driver surcharges, which has been diverted in recent years, to the trust fund.

Transition team members say they recognize the political difficulties involved in raising the gas tax in a state with one of the highest total state and local tax burdens in the nation. But, Duetzler said, the state's voters would probably be willing to go along with a hike if they can see clear benefits from it.

Written by Sandy Smith
For HULIQ.com

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