More than two dozen organizations sent a letter to state leaders asking them to support Gov. Phil Murphy’s proposed corporate transit fee and end a proposed $10.7 billion New Jersey Turnpike widening project and use that money instead of raising fares 15% this summer.
The letter, which was sent to State Senate President Nick Scutari, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and the entire state Legislature Monday, was signed by a wide range of groups from unions to transit and environmental advocates.
The 30-plus organizations mades four requests:
The groups asked legislative leadership to fully fund NJ Transit and to use their oversight powers over state agencies to call for an end to the Turnpike Extension in Hudson County.
“Legislators should not be playing the role of innocent bystanders in this train wreck. They need to repurpose the funds being expended for the unneeded, unwanted, and unpopular $11 billion Turnpike Expansion project to roll back the fare increase and reinstate the full CTF to provide dedicated funding for NJT,” said John Reichman, an EmpowerNJ Steering Committee member.
The Murphy administration explained that can’t be done for several reasons.
The Turnpike Authority isn’t sitting on $10.7 billion dollars, that money would be borrowed as needed, administration officials said. That money would be borrowed over time and when needed, as the project moved through phases of construction.
The authority also can’t borrow money for operations, it can only borrow for capital infrastructure projects, officials said. Doing that would violate state statutes and bond resolutions.
The letter stresses “the critical nature of Murphy’s Corporate Transit Fee proposal to provide an annual $800 million in dedicated funding for NJ Transit’s operational budget – and prevent a spiral.
That proposal has gotten strong pushback from the state and regional business groups, who contend another fee will make New Jersey more unfriendly to attract and retain businesses.
No legislation has been proposed to enact the corporate transit fee.
The need for the Turnpike extension widening and bridge replacement was a topic asked of acting State Transportation Commissioner Francis O’Connor during state Senate and Assembly budget hearings last month.
“It’s one of the original parts of the Turnpike after the mainline was built,” he said. “You can see traffic is stopped on the mainline to get into exit 14.”
Replacing the existing Newark Bay Bridge with a twin span is most of the cost for the first phase between Newark and Bayonne, O’Connor said. “The current bridge doesn’t have resiliency and needs to be raised and widened to get traffic across it and off the mainline,” he said.
“That bridge was built in the 1950s,” O’Connor told lawmakers. “It’s time and it’s an elevated highway which is more expensive.”
But environmentalists and other advocates contend the bridge can be rehabilitated, and they question the conclusions of Turnpike Authority’s studies that said the phase 1 widening and construction of a new bridge will have minimal effects.
“The Murphy Administration is aggressively pushing ahead with the $10.7 billion Turnpike Extension expansion project, which will be an economic, health, and environmental disaster,” the letter said.
“Despite its exorbitant cost at more than a billion dollars a mile, it will not even accomplish its purported goal of reducing traffic,” it said.
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Larry Higgs may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @CommutingLarry
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