Corzine's toll hikes are back on the table
Earlier this year Governor Jon Corzine floated the idea of raising tolls on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike by more than 800% in order to fund road improvements, public employee pensions, and a bunch of new social programs. The citizenry raised a ruckus and Corzine went back to the drawing board in search of a new plan.

The new plan is (drum roll, please) toll increases on the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike. Tolls will increase 50% next year, 50% again in 2012, and 11% in 2023. (2023? Fifteen years from now?) Revenue from the toll hikes will be used for road improvements and the construction of a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

New Jersey needs to fix the roads. The Pulaski Skyway is held together by rust, duct tape, and a chorus of Hail Marys. The Parkway needs widening below Toms River and the Turnpike merge below Exit 8 is a nightmare. There is no political will to raise the gas tax to pay for these improvements so increasing tolls seems like the next logical choice. A new commuter rail tunnel is badly needed as NJ Transit continues to expand their highly popular Midtown Direct train service while the existing tunnels have reached their maximum capacity.

The people who use the Parkway and Turnpike will benefit from the improvements to those roads so it's reasonable to expect them to pay the added costs. I'm not so sure though that they should also be saddled with paying for the rail tunnel or for repairs to other roads and bridges around the state. Rail commuters ought to pay for the new tunnel, perhaps via a surtax on their tickets. And a modest gas tax increase, used to repair our state's crumbing infrastructure, should still be on the table.

In an ideal world we would not have to raise the gas tax because the current level of revenue would be sufficient to finance the needed repairs. But Corzine frittered that money away via a complex debt-swap bonding scheme and all the money raised by the gas tax is spoken for already. The repairs still need to be done. It's going to cause some pain but having the motorists who use the roads pay for the repairs is the right thing to do.

Posted at 19:05 by Chris   []   | | | Email | del.icio.us | Digg | Stumble It! | Reddit | Link