Transportation

Background on Transportation, Transportation Trust Fund is Broke, Anticipate the Future, Regain the Public Trust, Improve and Expand Rail Service

Read further the BACKGROUND on TRANSPORTATION

PROBLEM:The pending funding crisis is impeding any progress that can be made to maintain and expand New Jersey’s transportation infrastructure. By 2011, revenues from the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund will be used exclusively to pay off debt accumulated over the past 15-years of fiscally irresponsible transportation spending. As such, the Transportation Trust Fund will be unable to support the $1.6 billion annual transportation capital program. Without quick reform, New Jersey might repeat the problems experienced in the 1970’s and fail to match federal transportation funds desperately needed to improve transportation.
SOLUTION:To ensure financial sustainability for transportation investment, we will restore the Transportation Trust Fund to its original concept of a balanced pay-as-you-go/short-term revolving loan fund, that puts in place the appropriate funding mechanisms that will tackle existing debt while generating the funds necessary to meet future needs.

Read further on how THE TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND is BROKE

PROBLEM: Once again, Trenton has not projected the future needs of its citizens. The state of New Jersey has not properly anticipated population growth and transportation needs.
SOLUTION: We need to construct and maintain a transportation system to meet 21st century needs.

Read further on how ANTICIPATING the FUTURE

PROBLEM: New Jersey families and businesses endure constant financial stress. They have been generous and willing to support productive publically-financed programs and initiatives. In recent times, however, they have become increasingly intolerant of transportation shortcomings that waste their time, money, fuel, clean air, and business competitiveness. Their concerns have merit and go far beyond the steel and concrete of New Jersey’s roads and rail.
SOLUTION: We will regain the support of New Jersey families and businesses by establishing a new line of trust between the public and publically-financed programs. To do so, we commit to make effective use of transportation funds and to measure success based on the social, economic, and environmental benefits of transportation investments – not by equating success with the quantity of dollars spent on a problem. This commitment requires correction of past investment failures and in-depth reform that eliminates waste and delays in project delivery.

Read further on REGAINING PUBLIC TRUST

PROBLEM: The State’s commitment to passenger rail is declining, despite a growing need.
SOLUTION: Passenger rail will be increasingly important to the Smart Growth future we desire. New Jersey must invest in improving and expanding passenger rail service.

Read further on REGAINING PUBLIC TRUST

Read further on IMPROVING and EXPANDING RAIL SERVICE

Background on Transportation

Transportation is deeply rooted in the state’s history and from its earliest days has been key to the state’s wealth and prosperity. New Jersey’s economy and the quality of life of its citizens are integrally tied to its transportation system which has been among the best in the United States. New Jersey’s system of highways, transit, rail, and local roadways has provided us with exceptional access to jobs, recreation, education, health care, and virtually every other activity that makes our state unique.

New Jersey is a hub for the distribution of goods, largely through the urban core, with major port facilities, rail yards and warehousing facilities that are served by limited access highways and local roads. Its workers and the economies of their home towns are dependent on high quality access to the business centers of New York, Philadelphia, Jersey City, Newark, New Brunswick, Trenton, and Camden as well as the important suburban employment corridors along Interstates 287, 78, 80, 295 and the New Jersey Turnpike.

Other than its residents, the state’s capital stock in roads, transit and other critical infrastructure may be its greatest asset. But if that asset cannot be maintained and upgraded to meet the challenges of these times, its utility and the viability of New Jersey’s economy will rapidly deteriorate.

Growth in population, traffic and public transit ridership will continue to test our already aging transportation system over the next ten years. Our growing society will demand higher levels of goods and services that will rely on the transportation system to access them. Consequently, travel demand on our roads and railways likely will grow at an even greater rate than the population. In an era of an increasingly integrated global economy New Jersey must anticipate even greater stress on its ports and domestic freight distribution network to deliver products and materials throughout the region.

Recognizing this, the future health of the state’s economy and the quality of life of its citizens will depend on forging a consensus on what we must accomplish with our transportation system. Issues such as increased international trade, climate change, volatile fuel prices and an aging population require us to adjust our transportation priorities from those of the past. And, with that adjustment we must honestly and openly address the challenges of New Jersey’s transportation system today, including how to pay for them.

The deep public skepticism and seeming indifference about the legitimacy of the funding crisis we are about to encounter must be addressed and overcome. If we are not careful, it could shape up to be a replay of the 1970s, when the state was so financially drained that it couldn’t match available federal transportation funding despite the great transportation needs the state faced at the time.

New Jersey overcame the transportation challenges and the public skepticism of that time by launching an era (1979 – 1996) of sustained bipartisan, financially responsible support for transportation investment that provided a foundation for unprecedented prosperity in the state for more than 20 years.

While the investment needs in the current era are clearly different, the same level of thoughtfulness and leadership that led to the creation of NJ Transit and the NJ Transportation Trust Fund as a source of stable transportation funding is demanded from elected and appointed officials at every level of government if New Jersey is to return to prosperity and financial stability.

Background on Transportation, Transportation Trust Fund is Broke, Anticipate the Future, Regain the Public Trust, Improve and Expand Rail Service

The Transportation Trust Fund is Broke

The funding for this program will be debated vigorously, however, we must honestly and forthrightly assess the true costs of future transportation needs and puts potential user-based funding sources up for consideration, including but not limited to: the motor fuels tax; conversion to a sales tax on fuel; adding tolls to existing non-toll roads; local option; voter approved dedicated sales tax; and public private ventures that preserve public control but attract new sources of funding to meet the challenges of these times.

To achieve this, the next Governor must clearly articulate what we must achieve in transportation during the next decade and forthrightly address the financial crisis we face in our transportation program. At a minimum, this public dialogue must address:

Continued advancement of the passenger rail tunnels;

Articulation of the inventory and cost of bridges, pavements, and traffic and drainage bottlenecks that must be repaired;

Identification and calculation of the strategic investments that assure New Jersey’s transportation system meets the challenges of the 21st Century, including transit, goods movement and pedestrian and bicycle safety;

The looming collapse of our (non-toll) transportation finance system that will cease by 2011 because after that date the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) revenues will be used exclusively to pay off debt and therefore be unavailable to support the State’s $1.6 billion annual transportation capital program;

The reality that for more than a decade we have continued to expand the TTF program through the use of debt while maintaining funding levels at essentially the same level; and

The high cost of providing a sustainable way of paying for transportation investment as well as the high cost to New Jersey of doing nothing.

We also need a governor that will serve all of New Jersey, not just certain areas. We will make transportation investment decisions based on what best integrates the economic, mobility and sustainability needs of the State and the region and not what best serves partisan or parochial interests.

Background on Transportation, Transportation Trust Fund is Broke, Anticipate the Future, Regain the Public Trust, Improve and Expand Rail Service

Anticipate the Future

Specific transportation objectives are essential to establish prior to embarking on any noteworthy initiative to remedy the shortcomings of current transportation finance mechanisms. New Jersey, as one of the wealthiest state in the Nation, must embrace such a challenge. Leaders at all levels of government and the private sector must join to act appropriately and expeditiously. New Jerseyans cannot afford and no longer have the tolerance or patience to endure a “business as usual” approach that yields marginal results.

It is essential that New Jersey’s transportation network and infrastructure should comprise the following characteristics:

Infrastructure in a state of good repair.

Facilities assuredly safe to use.

Reliable mobility with minimized congestion

Travel options readily available and equitable

A Financing system from equitable and appropriate revenue sources

Background on Transportation, Transportation Trust Fund is Broke, Anticipate the Future, Regain the Public Trust, Improve and Expand Rail Service

Regain the Public Trust

Residents and business owners have become sophisticated in their appraisal of the transportation network. They are more interested in the impact of transportation on their daily lives than in the technical and financial rhetoric that pass as Received Wisdom. The essential elements of a “new trust” that must be ignited are:

A commitment to make more effective use of transportation funds - providing transportation at the lowest possible cost.

Measuring success and performance on the beneficial social, economic, and environmental outcomes of our transportation investments rather than the current input-based model that equates success with dollars spent - being boldly accountable.

Increased expenditures from all levels of government and the private sector to compensate for past investment failures while addressing significant increases in future demand;

Respecting the value of New Jerseyans’ time. Prescribe an in-depth process and business model reform to eliminate waste and delays in project delivery.

New Jersey’s transportation system is at a defining moment. The future of our state’s well-being, vitality, and global economic leadership is at stake. We must take significant, decisive action now to create and maintain a transportation system that will sustain our economy and our prosperity well into the 21st Century.
Achieving this will require the confidence of residents and businesses as well as the implementation of efficient, cost-effective processes that are performance-driven and outcome based. There are no silver bullets. There are no quick fixes. Glib answers and budgetary shell games will no longer work if New Jersey is to prosper. Throughout the country it has been shown time and again, in good economic times and bad, that voters will support a program that is straightforward and provides clear benefits when implemented.

Success demands a forthright public discussion of what needs to be done, how it can be accomplished, what it will cost and how it will be paid for. The key to gaining public trust lies in a simple equation: say what you plan to do and then do what you said. It is the kind of change that the people of New Jersey can and will believe in.

Background on Transportation, Transportation Trust Fund is Broke, Anticipate the Future, Regain the Public Trust, Improve and Expand Rail Service

Improve and Expand Rail Service

The return to the cities and older suburbs is currently being fueled by easy access to rail transit in areas with density sufficient to maintain its operations. The new “ARC” rail tunnel into New York City will provide tremendous benefits to New Jersey residents and towns and will further fuel reinvestment and redevelopment along commuter rail lines. New Jersey must position itself to derive maximum benefit from the ARC tunnel by improving existing commuter rail infrastructure and capacity, reactivating commuter lines that were discontinued in the 1970’s and 80’s when the sprawl trend took hold, and exploring reactivation of abandoned rights-of-way to re-create rail connections that have been lost altogether.

In major transportation corridors that lack rail service, such as the Route 1 “Einstein’s Alley” corridor between Trenton and New Brunswick, investments must be made in alternative public transit such as Bus Rapid Transit.

Smart growth advocates and new funding initiatives must be directed to the activities that will “prime the pump” for reinvestment in this infrastructure and the growth it will spawn.

New Jersey’s transit initiatives of the 21st century, which have never been needed more, can build on the bones of a system that crisscrossed the nation’s most densely populated state before automobiles became popular. These investments will be a central element of all smart growth activities, and are critical to the state’s long term prosperity.

Background on Transportation, Transportation Trust Fund is Broke, Anticipate the Future, Regain the Public Trust, Improve and Expand Rail Service