By David Cruz
Correspondent
It’s an idea that has been floating around for a few months now and officially made its way into a report by the transportation group Forward NJ. As a way to help fill the coffers at the soon to be depleted Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), why not merge the state’s Department of Transportation, Turnpike Authority and New Jersey Transit? Assemblyman John Wisniewski today said the idea’s not his, per se, but he’d like to have it discussed.
“Everything needs to be on the table,” said Wisniewski, who chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee. “We need to understand, are we delivering transportation projects in the most cost-effective manner? Does it make sense to have an agency in one part of the state that’s designing transportation projects and have another one somewhere else in the state doing the exact same thing? Are there economies of scale that can be achieved that can save us money?”
Officials estimate that the Transportation Trust Fund, which is supposed to be the vehicle to fund construction and repair of transportation infrastructure around the state, could go broke by the end of June, with most of the money in it now going to pay debt service. They say it needs about $1.5 billion a year going forward to keep up with the work that’s needed. Assemblyman Scott Rumana is the ranking Republican on the Transportation Committee.
“Looking at the concept of merging agencies, I don’t think that’s going to bring you $1.6 billion a year so it’s maybe going to be a part of the puzzle and we have to find more of the pieces to make it whole,” said Rumana.
Other funding sources being floated by Forward NJ including revenues from the Motor Vehicle Commission, online gaming, a gas tax and even some dollars from red light cameras, a notion which sticks in the craw of the man who’s become the face of the anti-red light camera crusade — Asemblyman Declan O’Scanlon.
“They’re going to say we’ll fix the Transportation Trust Fund with this money,” he said. “By the way, the only way they’re going to do that would be a massive influx of cameras and you would have to unquestionably mis-engineer many more yellow lights, make them short, so you’re catching enough people to pay for the equipment and then throw off hundreds of millions of dollars and speed cameras, the same thing.”
As for a gas tax, which has been debated for years now, the governor has consistently posted a big stop sign in front of that one.
“It is not my preference to see an increase in the gas tax and I don’t believe we will see an increase in the gas tax,” Christie said on NJ 101.5 in May. “I also know that we have to pay for continued improvements to our roads and bridges; that’s a public safety issue. We do not wanna have collapsing bridges and crumbling roads that cause injury to our citizens, so we’ve gotta work together to figure out a way to pay for that.”
The Assembly Transportation Committee will meet next week in Montclair where the merger, a gas tax and other presumed non-starters will be discussed. Meanwhile, the Transportation Trust Fund needles inches perilously close to empty.