Well that didn't take long.

Just six years and nine months.

That's how long Chris Christie has been in office without addressing the multi-billion-dollar deficit in the Transportation Trust Fund.

On Friday he finally agreed to a deal with the Democrats that raises the gas tax 23 cents a gallon.

Why the sudden change of heart? Perhaps because the day before there was a train crash in Hoboken that brought into sharp focus the state's lack of funding for transportation infrastructure.

The National Transportation Safety Board has yet to conclude just what caused that accident that killed one and injured 114. But the newspapers are full of stories that couldn't be good for Christie's career, such as the Washington Post's "Before Hoboken Crash, Investigators Found Dozens of Problems at NJ Transit."

Far better for the governor to get that Transportation Trust Fund crisis out of the news. That's what's expected to happen Wednesday, when both house of the state Legislature will convene special sessions to vote on it.

The package includes elimination of the estate tax, elimination of taxation on most retirement income and a small cut in the sales tax.

Make that infinitesimal. The rate will drop from 7 percent to 6.875 percent on Jan. 1, 2017 and by another .25 percent a year later.

Unless you're buying a Ferrari, you won't notice that. But state Senate President Steve Sweeney told me he had to include that cut to get Christie to agree to the package.

"I'm not crazy about the deal; it's not the perfect deal," Sweeney said. "We just couldn't let it go on any longer. Christie would have gone the remainder of his term without funding the Transportation Trust Fund."

That tiny tax cut exists solely to let the governor boast that he cut a statewide tax - just in case he ever decides to run for president again. He'll be only 58 in 2020; 62 in 2024. A guy can dream.

But it's dreaming that got him into this mess. When he took office, Christie inherited a TTF that had been run dry by his predecessors, both Democratic and Republican.

"Remember in 2003 Jim McGreeevey wanted to raise the tax 6 cents," said Sweeney. "Everyone said that's too much money and they just refinanced the debt. The Democrats and the Republicans alike. They all did it."

They did indeed - right up to the point that all the revenue from the current 14.5-cent-per-gallon tax now goes to pay off the borrowing.

When Christie came into office, he could have rightly blamed his predecessors for bankrupting the fund. He could have put it on a firm footing by seeking a constitutional amendment putting the fund on a pay-as-you-go basis - with no borrowing.

Instead he continued Jon Corzine's policy of borrowing - to the tune of more than $3 billion. This permitted him to claim fealty to that ridiculous no-tax pledge propagated by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

It's ridiculous because it addresses only taxation, not spending and/or borrowing. The one time I interviewed Norquist - as he was waiting for a tax-subsidized Amtrak train, by the way - he dodged every question on why his pledge failed to include borrowing.

Absent such a clause, the pledge is really just the liberal something-for-nothing approach masquerading as fiscal conservatism. If, as Norquist argues, taxation is theft, then the only logical conclusion is that we should have no gas tax - and no roads.

And even with this hike, the state tax amounts to a bit more than a penny per mile for the average car, hardly a big burden.

According to Gasbuddy.com, the cheapest gas in the state at the moment is $1.75 a gallon for regular. Meanwhile there are stations charging $2.49, $2.59 and even $2.89 for a gallon of regular, according to the site. In other words there are drivers willing to pay more than three times the amount of that tax hike just because they don't want to drive a few miles to find a cheaper price.

And a check of another site shows that even after the hike, Jersey drivers will be able to buy gas cheaper than in any countries on Earth except four - Saudi Arabia and three other major oil exporters.

So what was all the drama about? Christie could have taken this deal, minus the token sales-tax cut, months ago and pronounced it a win. The cuts in the estate tax and retiree-income tax were good bragging points for any Republican.

As for the gas tax, we're still cheaper than the surrounding states. We'd be cheaper still if Christie had leveled with drivers from the beginning instead of trying the same tricks his predecessors did.

That would have shown he's a leader.

Instead he's shown he's a follower - and the guy whose pledge he followed helped lead the country into $20 trillion worth of debt.

COMMENTS: If you want to comment here, please don't bore us by repeating Norquist's nonsensical assertion that conservatives oppose all tax hikes.

Nonsense. True conservatives oppose bonding. As I noted in this column, what conservatives oppose is incurring expenses that are reliant on borrowing.

Since I grew up in Ocean County, I had the chance to witness some of the last true conservatives in America - before the Republican Party was taken over by such characters as Norquist. These tightwads believed that every cent spent in a fiscal year should be paid for in that fiscal year. This, boys and girls, is the essence of conservatism, as I wrote in that piece:

Christie is among many Republicans who have fallen for the line put out by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. That line says you can spend as much as you want - as long as you don't raise taxes to pay for it.

Borrowing violates that pledge, however. On the national level, AFT has never even supported the Balanced Budget Amendment. On the state level, the pledge permits pols to borrow to their heart's content.

This is the polar opposite of what fiscal conservatism was when I was a lad covering the Ocean County Freeholders in Toms River. They were a bunch of skinflint pineys and clam-diggers who considered bonding to be an affront to all that was sacred. Whatever they spent in a year they raised in taxes that same year.

Now that's conservatism.

If you want to drive the roads without paying for them, you are a liberal.