(The following story by Tom Davis appeared on the Bergen Record website on February 27.)
HACKENSACK, N.J. — State officials and transportation advocates had mixed reactions Tuesday to the Corzine administration’s proposal to slash transportation funding by 20 percent while pushing for 800 percent toll hikes that would fund infrastructure projects.
Lawmakers praised Governor Corzine’s 2009 budget proposal for creating a “smaller, leaner” state government — though transportation would suffer the biggest cuts, and nighttime hours at motor vehicle agencies could be eliminated.
Assemblyman John Wisniewski said the public wants lawmakers to cut spending before they agree to any tax, toll or fee hike that would also pay down the state’s $32 billion debt.
“He laid out a blueprint that is not pretty,” said Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, who is chairman of the Transportation and Public Works Committee. “I give him a lot of credit for presenting a plan that can be executed.”
Transportation advocates, meanwhile, said motorists will suffer if they’re paying more for fewer services — though Corzine offered no specifics on funding cuts.
“If [budget cuts are] one of the things it takes to get the state budget back on track, then I guess motorists will deal with it,” AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman David Weinstein said. “It’s disappointing.”
In his address, Corzine noted that his toll-hike plan has strong public opposition, but he challenged lawmakers to produce a better proposal that would fix the state’s crumbling roads and bridges, and reduce congestion by expanding mass transit.
The administration, however, wouldn’t address why it targeted transportation for the budget’s deepest cuts, saying it planned to discuss more specifics today.
Under Corzine’s proposal, transportation funding would shrink from $103.8 to $82.4 million, though the plan also includes a $60 million boost for NJ Transit.
The funding increase drew praise from transportation advocates who have long pushed for more mass transit options and fewer road-widening projects that, they believe, would encourage more vehicular traffic, congestion and pollution.
But Zoe Baldwin, New Jersey coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, wasn’t pleased that the DOT will proceed with plans to spend more than $2 billion to widen sections of the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway.
“He can’t talk out both sides of his mouth,” Baldwin said. “They’re spending all this money on road widening but they’re having a 20 percent decrease in funding.”
Assemblyman Kevin O’Toole, R-Wayne, meanwhile, said the state should focus on reducing its debt and cutting spending before it considers any additional expansion of state government or tax or toll increase.
“We’ve got to start paying as we go,” he said.