New Jersey’s Great Highway Debate

New Jersey’s roads and bridges are in such disrepair, it’s costing motorists close to thousands of dollars each year.

Garden State drivers are shelling out $1,951 annually due to the poor condition of the roadways, according to a January 2015 report from the nonprofit transportation research group TRIP. And the problem has been going on for years: In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the state’s streets a grade of D. Even back then, New Jersey’s largest local news website called this “shameful.”

New Jersey Capitol Report Anchor Steve Adubato says the issue is a lack of funding, and he points to raising state’s gas tax as a way to fill the gap.

“New Jersey’s gas tax is the second-lowest in the nation…it is 14.5 cents on a gallon of gas,” he told MetroFocus Host and Capitol Report Co-Anchor Rafael Pi Roman.

According to the American Petroleum Institute, only Alaska’s is lower.

Adubato, who served one term in the state Assembly as a Democrat, says New Jersey’s Republican governor and lawmakers are opposed to raising the tax but have not presented an alternative funding measure. However, he says the business community is open to an increase.

Back in October, New Jersey Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas A. Bracken told Adubato on New Jersey Capitol Report that the gas tax was the “most prominent discussed part of raising the money” for the state’s transportation fund. Bracken said the Chamber is waiting for Gov. Chris Christie and the state Legislature to propose a plan it can endorse.

In the past, some Republicans have suggested a compromise that includes increasing the gas tax in exchange for cutting the estate tax, but Adubato says prominent Democrats aren’t on board, which could further delay a funding solution.

“If there’s not some compromise on this gas tax, which I feel is the only way to fund this thing called the Transportation Trust Fund it’s going to run out of money in June 2016, and we cannot afford that to let that happen because the motorists deserve more,” he said.

In the meantime, the state’s infrastructure woes are not only expensive, but possibly dangerous.

Adubato says the longer it takes to make repairs, the greater the safety risk.

“They’re in disrepair, they are in various state of disrepair, and every report your read you know it just gets scarier and scarier,” he said. “And there have been bridges across this country that have collapsed. And look, the last thing I want to do here on public television is scare people and say…I’m going to predict a bridge is going to collapse, but you can Google it and find out that across this country it has happened.”