Major structural reforms would require legislative approval in Albany and Trenton, which would be hard but definitely worth a try. New Jersey, for instance, could help matters by enacting the equivalent of a reform law approved in New York that, among other things, required board members to pledge to uphold their fiduciary duties to their agency’s mission, not to their patron in the governor’s mansion. Short of that, the two governors should make changes that could make the authority less political and more professional.

The Port Authority’s 12-member board of commissioners is appointed by the governors, six by each. They should be appointed on the basis of their professional qualifications, not political connections, as so often happens, and held to six-year term limits. Some holdovers have been there for more than 10 years.

Each commissioner should also publicly disclose potential conflicts of interest well before the authority makes its decisions. These potential conflicts should be regularly displayed on the Port Authority’s website. Commissioners have routinely been allowed to lobby for contracts that could affect personal businesses and, only later after the decision is made, would they formally recuse themselves in the official minutes. Their recusal in each case should be announced at the public board meeting.

Under the traditional power-sharing arrangement, New Jersey appoints the chairman of the board, New York the executive director. That worked well until 1995, when Gov. George Pataki of New York chose an incompetent executive. The move so angered New Jersey’s governor at the time, Christine Todd Whitman, that she demanded the right to appoint a deputy executive director as well. That change gives New Jersey more power over day-to-day decisions. It’s time to allow the executive to pick his or her own deputy after consulting with the board.

The authority is notoriously secretive, despite some recent efforts to provide more information on its website. It is time to require more transparency, including clear public announcements of all items approved by the board while in public session. The authority should also have to answer to rigorous freedom of information laws in both states. There must be stronger protections for whistle-blowers, and the two state legislatures should not approve commissioners until they have been carefully vetted for conflicts of interest as well as professional qualifications.