FU 3 GENOVESE SKYWAY07 OBOY.JPG

View of the Pulaski Skyway and the Hackensack River in Jersey City.

(ohn O'Boyle / The Star Ledger)

Your bones have been jarred by giant potholes, your nerves frayed as you inched your way, stop-start-stop, through construction zones. Maybe you’re already too familiar with the Pulaski Skyway, the creaky 80-year-old bridge connecting Newark and Jersey City — or one of the many other roadways in New Jersey desperately in need of repair.

The state spent $90 million over the past seven years just to patch the Pulaski and to keep the commuter artery open. Was it worth it? That work will be torn up during a billion-dollar rehab project that will force authorities to close the bridge in one direction for two years.

The Pulaski Skyway is the perfect example of New Jersey’s decaying transportation network. Other infrastructure — water and sewer lines, the electrical power grid — is disintegrating, too.

The Skyway’s story is a metaphor for New Jersey’s infrastructure predicament: Spend a little money fixing little problems today, and save the big problems for later. Meanwhile, problems keep growing until they’re so big and expensive, they can’t be put off anymore.

That’s where we find ourselves — in a crisis of procrastination. Experts say we’re staring at urgent repairs. Delay, and we risk serious damage to the economy, not to mention the quality of our lives.

To put it in human terms: Overwhelmed highways and railways mean longer commutes. Crumbling water lines matter when you eat, drink or brush your teeth. And we learned about the power grid’s vulnerability after Tropical Storm Irene, and again after Hurricane Sandy.

In its latest report, to be released tomorrow, Facing Our Future estimates the cost to fix New Jersey's infrastructure at more than $70 billion — and that's conservative. It doesn't include desperately needed upgrades to the state's communication, data and higher-education systems. What follows are the report's findings.

For years, repairs were put off because they were too expensive. What happens if we drag our feet again?

The Fixes

WATER SYSTEMS: $40.7 billion

Price tag

That much is needed to fix the state’s drinking water and wastewater system, plus continue the state’s open space preservation program, for the next five to 20 years.

Why it matters

New Jersey leads the nation in protecting its drinking water supplies — see the Highlands and Pinelands preservation laws. But the man-made infrastructure that carries and cleans our water is getting old fast. Our water systems lose, on average, 20 percent of their water supplies very year because of leaky pipes. Water and sewer systems are the keys to growth: We can’t build new homes, schools, malls or factories without them.

The need

The federal Environmental Protection Agency says New Jersey’s water system infrastructure ranks among the worst in the nation in terms of money needs. The five greatest needs, ranked nationally:

• 1st in stormwater management, $15.6 billion;

• 2nd in combined sewer outflow correction, $9.3 billion;

• 3rd in decentralized wastewater treatment, $2.2 billion;

• 4th in repairs and improvements, secondary treatment and advanced treatment, $6.3 billion;

• 4th in nonpoint source pollution control, $1.8 billion.



Recommendations

• A common theme in these reports: a lack of up-to-date planning. State, regional and local plans are out-of-date. If lawmakers don’t know what the latest needs are, it’s impossible to plan for them.

• Spend at least $250 million over five years to buy and protect watershed open space. The open space protects the sources of clean water, as well as wetlands that filter and clean the water supply naturally. Expand buyouts of flood-prone homes to create natural buffers and protect developed areas.

• Stricter regulations to preserve and enhance water quality means taxpayers won’t have to spend billions of dollars in the future to build expensive filtration and treatment plants.

• Raise fees on water use to pay for water system upgrades.

TRANSPORTATION: $21.3 billion

Price tag

New Jersey needs to invest roughly $4.25 billion a year for the next five years.

Why it matters

That’s the minimum needed to keep state highways in decent repair, gridlock to a minimum, and the trains and buses running on time. The longer it takes to commute to work or school, to drive to shop or visit family, the more quality of life is eroded. If a business can’t move products quickly and dependably, it’s not going to stick around very long.

The need

New Jersey needs $2 billion a year more than it collects for transportation infrastructure.

Why? Lots of reasons. First, poor planning: The long-range transportation plan hasn’t been updated since 2003. That overall plan called for $80 billion in transportation infrastructure upgrades through 2021, but Facing Our Future boiled those down to the most immediate, short-range needs by 2018. That’s $21.3 billion. Transportation funding is a political football. Budgetmakers routinely grab from the Transportation Trust Fund to plug other budget holes — and the well is almost dry.

Today, nearly all of the $1 billion a year poured into the Transportation Trust Fund pays debt on past projects — leaving nothing for new work.

Recommendations

• Plan big: New Jersey needs a new, statewide plan to lay out future project needs at the state and local levels.

• Pay the bills: Replenish the Transportation Trust Fund and stop using it to balance the rest of the state budget. Commit to a minimum $8 billion a year for five years. That’ll keep it going for another decade.

• Raise the gas tax: It hasn’t been raised in 21 years. It’s time, desperately. But that’s only a short-term solution.

• Look ahead: Higher mileage standards and new fuel science mean gasoline consumption — and therefore gas tax collections — will shrink. Consider replacements being tested in other states, such as replacing the gas tax with a sales tax on fuel (Virginia) and “vehicle miles traveled” fees (Oregon).

ELECTRIC POWER: $8.7 billion

Price tag

That’s what New Jersey’s major utilities — PSE&G, JCP&L and Atlantic City Electric — plan to spend over the next decade to fortify the electrical grid, including substations, transmission lines and systemwide communications. All of it — plus a built-in profit margin for the privately owned utilities — will be charged back to customers in the form of higher rates.

Why it matters

In consecutive years, hurricane-type storms blew across New Jersey and knocked out electricity to millions — in some places, for as long as two weeks. By knocking down power lines and flooding substations, Irene and Sandy exposed the grid’s weaknesses. But New Jersey’s electricity rates for business are among the most expensive. Can the work be done without pricing business out of the state?

The need

Edison Electric Institute estimates utilities nationwide must spend $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion by 2030. The American Society of Civil Engineers sets the Mid-Atlantic’s need at $18.2 billion through 2020, and $130 billion through 2040.

What they're doing

PSE&G’s plans call for big-ticket items. Among them:

• $5.2 billion on transmission and distribution construction through 2013;

• $1.7 billion to raise, move or protect switching stations or substations affected by flooding and storms;

• 16 large-scale solar installations, including four solar farms and 116,000 units on utility poles;

• $454 million on smart-grid technology that sends outage data to a central computer, rather than waiting for customers to call;

• $60 million to bury 20 miles of overhead lines underground.

Recommendations

Currently, the state Board of Public Utilities reacts when a utility applies for improvements or rate hikes. What New Jersey needs is a proactive system that allows the BPU to get involved in long-term planning, and calls for large-scale improvements before a crisis strikes.

ABOUT THE FACING OUR FUTURE REPORT

Facing Our Future is an independent, bipartisan think tank, led by a volunteer Leadership Group of 19 former government executives and public servants.

The organization’s latest report, “Infrastructure Investments Necessary for Economic Success,” builds upon a growing public awareness of the role that infrastructure plays in our daily lives. The report emphasizes the choices that New Jersey faces, and recommends that New Jersey citizens view infrastructure investments in total, rather than as discrete transactions.

From Facing Our Future: “This report differs from other studies and reports; it isn’t only about numbers — it is about how we, as citizens, collectively envision our future and how we need to rethink current priorities to ensure that future and our economic success.

“New Jersey has deferred investment in its utilities systems, roads and bridges, public transportation and water supply systems — and those systems have decayed. Sandy exposed and highlighted these existing problems. Today, we are forced to face our infrastructure deficiencies now, and to act with urgency.”

Starting tomorrow, read the report at facingourfuture.org.

Leadership Group



Nancy Becker, William Byrnes, Raphael J. Caprio, Michael Catania, Sam Crane, Kathy Crotty, Christopher Daggett, Robert Del Tufo, John Farmer Jr., Gwendolyn Harris, Michael Horn, Feather O'Connor Houstoun, Robert Hughey, Jack Lettiere, Marc Pfeiffer, Deborah T. Poritz, Ingrid Reed, Robert L. Smartt, Charles Venti.