When Gov. Chris Christie canceled the ARC Tunnel over what he said were cost overrun concerns, many transit advocates believed he had an ulterior motive for canceling the project. Today, we learn that the conspiracy theories just might be true. As Bloomberg News’ Dustan McNichol reported, New Jersey will take $1.25 billion in money originally intended for the ARC Tunnel and use it on roads instead.
On the one hand, this development isn’t as outrageous as it could be. The $1.25 billion is coming from bonds issued by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, and had ARC gone forward, this bond issue would have been one of the few in which highway funds were bonded for rail projects. “Historically, only turnpike projects have been funded with turnpike tolls,” Martin Robins of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center said. “[ARC] was one of a few exceptions to the rule — by far the largest exception.”
On the other, well, investing in roads — and in particular, road expansion plans — without adding rail capacity will hinder the New York/New Jersey region. By improving and widening roads, New Jersey will be encouraging more cars to hit the roads, and as these cars head to the region’s center of commerce, congestion under the Hudson River will continue to gross worse. Sustainability and economic efficiency will take a significant hit. It’s true that the ARC Tunnel had design flaws, but spending on roads without increasing rail capacity will be disastrous for the region.
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The Legislatures and Governors of New Jersey for more than a decade prior to the Christie Administration have been over-spending and under-funding ALL transportation projects projects in the State to the point that the “Highway Trust Fund” (which is no such thing since NJ is not allowed to have “trust funds” in their budget process) is bankrupt.
Next year 100% of the revenue from sources ostensibly dedicate to “transportation projects” will go to servicing debt. There would be ZERO money for any projects – pavement or rail. NJ would have been a State with ONE project – the ARC Tunnel.
So before you decry “transit money” being spent on “highway projects” try to understand the reality of the situation – it is a shell game. All those “jobs” lost when the ARC tunnel was canceled will be picked up again when they can now release scores of highway projects.
Does the region need another Hudson River rail tunnel? Absolutely. But they also need to maintain their highway infrastructure as well as keep their government solvent – things which over a decade of fiscal mismanagement has made virtually impossible. The ARC Tunnel was poorly funded, badly managed and terribly directed. Killing it was the best hope for an eventual successful project in the future.
I think NJ needs more of everything. It needs expanded roads and expanded transit. But note that NJ has taken on many very large transit projects in recent years. It has two entirely new light rails systems built from scratch, one of which is being extended as we speak, it opened the Secaucus transfer station recetly as wellas the Meadowlands station. It has spent a ton of money to introduce double decker trains to its fleet and you can see the turnover in its bus fleet quite readily. One can argue whether it has put money into the right transit projects, and I think it should do much more, but this is hardly a state that has stood still on the subject.
And unless you are just diametrically anti-car, there is a crying need — unaddressed — for road capacity expansion projects in northern NJ. This is not a matter of serially widening roads to no effect. NJ’s largest cities of Newark and Jersey City are linked by exactly 2 antiquated highways, each 2 lane alignments, one of which bans trucks for safety reasons. One should go out and drive the 2 lane highway from Bayonne/Jersey City to Newark — it’s choked with trucks all day long. But don’t worry, there are zero plans afoot to even so much as third lane those roads.
I think this is a good use for New Jersey, despite the need for increased transit options. New Jersey’s highways are in great disrepair, and since they serve the most heavily populated region in the United States, they need to be kept up to date and safe for travelers. Like it or not, the thoroughfares that serve the NY/NJ corridor are and will always be heavily traveled, no matter how much effort is put in to expanding New Jersey transit options. That being said, it is unfortunate that these funds will most likely not be used to improve the accessibility of these highways, but rather to maintain the way it already is, considering the system is in such a heinous state of repair.
lets not forget most NJ residents do not come into the city and mass transit is not an option due to layout of towns and communities. Teh bond money spent on needed road improvement is the way to go. Finally a Gov that has common sense. ARC was a poorly designed project from the start. There is not an unlimited amount of money to spend and most NJ residents will benefit more from the road project
11.5% of New Jersey households don’t have a car. That’s the second highest rate of any state in the US, after New York. It doesn’t make sense to think of New Jersey as autopia. It only seems that way next to New York City.
And for the rest who do own a car, perhaps they would like independence from car ownership. It’s quite liberating!
And most of them are concentrated in cities like Newark where transit money should be focused and has been. Light rail was needed where it was built but if you live in Lincoln Park NJ, mass transit other than train into the city for a rather small portion of the population is impractical for everyday activities. In fact most of those riders DRIVE to the train.
Spending money on Mass transit on the wrong projects is not the way to go. In fact we spend too much money on projects transit, road or otherwise that make no economic sense and we can not afford. If this money being redirected was federal mass transit money redirected to roads I would be ticked off but it is not. It is money raised from motorists .
The 7 line to nj makes sense. It provides access to NJ rider to many more midtown and east side destinations with an easier transfer than the ARC project plus opens up Long Island city and west side yards to NJ residents that will only boast property value and tax revenue to the city. Put a small(very small)property tax in these areas dedicated to mass transit funding. After all building owners will see a huge gain and thus it is neutral to them in the long term. The best time of tax increase, GROWTH
FYI the conservative right is just as wrong as the liberal left on many issues. Many solutions lie in the center the only problem is advocate organizations a dependent on funding from one side of the other. NYS already has too many dedicated taxes for the mta. These taxes and tolls seem to go down a money pit of we want more. Now they are stealing some of them. This should stop but even if the money returns we still need to make the work rules changes to bring the system into a better operating place and a LAW should be passed that debt should not exceed a certain percentage of the operating budget. This will prevent the UNION money grab in good times and end this boom and bust merry go round at the mta. Take out the debt payments that could have been paid down in the good years or real estate and AOL phone taxes and combined them with station agent reductions and other mta changes such as regional bus circa 2001 and the budget crises would not be half as severe
Most NJ residents who come into the city could and should take transit.
Road improvement could be paid for by raising gasoline taxes to they actually cover more of the cost of maintaining NJ’s roads.
Additional road projects in NJ are not likely to have a very positive impact. Focus should be on de-congesting the roads, and the projects with the highest potential to move the most people are almost certainly all rail projects.
I agree ARC was poorly designed, but it was probably better than nothing given that it was started and funding was in place. If Christie were intellectual honest about costs and cost effectiveness, he would have focused on dropping the cavern in favor of trying to get the tunnel into Penn.
Apparently Christie thinks it’s cheaper to send our boys and girls to die in endless wars for oil on the other side of the world and has zero regard for our air quality. What a thoroughly unpatriotic, ill-conceived allocation of taxpayer money.
We live in the densest-populated state in America and should enjoy a rail network at least on a par with those in Belgium or Holland, whose economies and urban concentrations are on a similar scale.
We can end much of our need for foreign oil if Oboma would just move our cars and trucks to domestic natural gas as a transition fuel. hydraulic fracking is far less harmful to the environment than coal or most other industrial manufacturing . We can reduce our use of foreign oil by 50% withing 5 years. OHHH the Nat gas industry would pull us out of the current recession as billion of dollar stay in the US and we do not need to get involved in senseless wars. Average salaries in the NAT gas world is $70k and up
The hydraulic fracking happens a mile or more below the water table. the only issue where the epa needs to put in rules is to ban above ground storage pools. Any ground water contamination happened with this holding pond leaking or spilling. Require enclosed tanks and companies to collect rain water to supply water to the operations. All incidents were from fly by night operators who should never have been permitted in the first place
So, the question then is begged: where’s the other two thirds going?
TBD, but most likely to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund. Some of that money will go toward NJ Transit/PATH capital projects.
I still can’t believe (wait, actually, I can, because Christie’s an ass) that they’re not raising the gas tax. Raise the damn gas tax! Sure, it won’t solve *all* our problems, but it’ll help solve a damn good chunk of them.
Why would he raise the gas tax? That is putting a further burden on taxpayers who are already over burden. Considering you need to drive everywhere you go, you are taking food out of people mouth.
Raising taxes won’t solve any problems the same way as raising the fare and tolls won’t solve any problems. The problems of NJ and NY are simple, spending money we don’t have, over paying union labor big time and pensions that have been sweetened beyond what we can reasonable afford.
Both NY and NJ need to make serious cuts in programs to get spending in line with REASONABLE TAXATION. We can no longer pay for half empty hospitals or state senate rules intended to protect union workers beyond reasonable protections. A good example is the rule that requires 1 year notice to close an empty childrens jail
Just read the arbitrators ruling in the last TWU 100 pay dispute. He said 11% raises at an agency that is in debt over it’s ears and taxing people out of state is justified because the mta has the ability to raise and raise fares. All the mta cuts do not add up to the raises granted without any work rule changes.
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Nobody is really talking about raising the gas tax, but bringing it in line with inflation. All your other taxes (that are percentages of a price) are raised continually, as prices go up due to inflation. Keeping the gas tax as a flat fee is absurd, and only serves to distort the marketplace in ways where you pay much more for other things than you save by having the lower gas tax.
I agree with you about union wages, because those are truly raises (and ones we can’t afford). “Raising” the gas tax just means indexing it to bring it closer to the reality that every service (including road construction services) costs more today than it did in the past.
The context here is that Turnpike tolls were just jacked up monstrously, and are scheduled for another 50%(!) increase in 13 months. What would the comments here be like if the MTA put in place to 50% transit fare increases?
NJTransit fares were raised 20-30% last May, and 9% back in 2007, and numerous fare increases prior to that.
NJ gas tax hasn’t been raised since 1988. How much did gasoline cost then?
Any way you shake it taxes. All other taxes have gone up we should be looking to lower taxes. Maybe your frame of reference is not someone who has family in NJ, but raising the Gas tax in NJ will hurt lower income residents . Keeping it at a flat rate and not as an index protects the public against the swings in fuel prices.
One reason that CNG cars are not a political priority is how are you going to tax the CNG people put in their cars at home. We are going to have the same issue with electric cars. One idea floated is taxing per mile but if you think of it, it is very big brother. A second idea is to put a chip in the car that measures gas and electric input that then gets reported back to the go and you will have to pay. Also not popular with a public. Oboma wants to raise electric rates across the board
CNG cars at todays cng prices is half as expensive per mile
PATH? Really?
PATH is getting a CBTC upgrade to go with their new CBTC ready PA-5 cars.
I love how he denied he was going to do this and now is doing it. Hope this is getting some local media coverage. Why can’t he save the money for a future tunnel project? Here comes the roads out into the suburbs to support his constituents.
The kind of funny part is he probably screwed over the biggest, most politically active demographic in the state, namely the at least fiscally conservative upper middle class (who probably in no small part contributed to his election). Those are the people who are going to be stuck on cattle cars with indirect service.
Well, kind of – a map of who won which municipality has the usual pattern of the Democrats winning the cities and some inner suburbs, and the Republicans winning the suburbs further out and the rural areas. In the region where ARC would be at all useful, the Bergen/Passaic County area, this pattern still held.
Somehow I suspect the people making six figures commuting to Midtown weren’t very happy with the Dems this year or last, whether they lived in Bergen or Hackettstown or Summit. Even if I’m wrong, these are people who vote at irregularly high rates and have money to spare to donate to campaigns – not people either party really wants to ostracize.
There’s no breakdown of the vote based on where people work, unfortunately. But I don’t think it’s obvious that people who commute to Midtown are more Republican than people who commute to Paramus. They’re richer, but they’re also disproportionately concentrated in pro-Democratic industries, like finance. They’re certainly not part of the Real American narrative pushed by the likes of Christie, in which a true citizen doesn’t ever visit the city.
Yeah. I don’t think those people are really more Republikan these days, but they probably weren’t happy with the Dems this past election. That means they either vote against them or stay home. (A lot of finance people have turned against the Dems.)
Of course, presidential voting behavior, where NJ is solidly Dem, may not translate to state and local races.
Paterson apparently knotted Christie’s knickers with the Tappan Zee idea. I truly had no idea New York had so many successful heists against NJ. Not that I know what these heists are, but Christie apparently does. http://nydn.us/dGm3kp
which is 85% of NJ residents. People forget that it is one big suburb
In the classic sense of the term, sure. In the modern sense of single family, low-density, detached tract housing, not really. Much of NJ is well into the urban category.
When did Chris Christie’s staffers start posting here?
Actually, Obama is commander in chief, not some governor. If you’re against boys and girls dying and think Obama’s military strategy is designed to facilitate driving, take it up with him.
Oboma has had to gone back on his troop with drawl pledge. the facts are that we are stuck in a war that is not winnable. Move to cng and we don’t need the oil. Let China fight it out. FYI china is investing in CNG in Texas. They will diversify but we won’t. Fake environmental concerns that can be addressed by repealing horrible clean water act exemptions and put in sensible safe guards