N.J. will shut down hundreds of road projects on Friday
A shutdown of maintenance and construction on hundreds of roads and bridges throughout New Jersey will commence Friday night as a result of a funding crisis that Gov. Christie says threatens the "health, safety, and welfare" of state residents.
A shutdown of maintenance and construction on hundreds of roads and bridges throughout New Jersey will commence Friday night as a result of a funding crisis that Gov. Christie says threatens the "health, safety, and welfare" of state residents.
Christie last week issued an executive order calling for an "orderly shutdown" of nonessential projects funded by the Transportation Trust Fund Authority, which will run out of money in August. The trust fund is the state's primary financing mechanism for road, bridge, and rail projects.
On Wednesday, the governor's office said the shutdown would take effect 11:59 p.m. Friday and run for at least seven days.
Over that time period, contractors will stop hundreds of projects in an "orderly and safe manner," said Stephen Schapiro, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
"I don't think the average motorist will notice much of a difference," he said.
State officials identified hundreds of projects - most of them local - that will be left untouched for the foreseeable future. The contracts total hundreds of millions of dollars.
In South Jersey, that includes Route 70 in Camden and Burlington Counties, where a multimillion-dollar construction project began recently.
Federally funded projects and those deemed essential for the "health, safety, and welfare" of the state's residents are exempt from the shutdown, according to the governor's office.
Funding will be allocated to address emergencies such as sinkholes, but routine potholes are likely to remain unrepaired until the Democratic-controlled Legislature acts.
Christie's five-year transportation-funding plan expired last week at the end of fiscal 2016. Christie and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D., Hudson) struck a deal to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund for eight years by raising the state's tax on gasoline to 37.5 cents per gallon, more than double the current tax of 14.5 cents.
The Assembly also passed legislation that would gradually reduce the state's sales tax from 7 to 6 percent by the time Christie's term expires in January 2018.
That plan hit a wall in the Senate, however, where lawmakers said they were concerned about revenue shortfalls caused by the sales tax cut.
Senators had proposed a different set of tax cuts to accompany the gas-tax hike, including a phase-out of the estate tax. However, Christie said he didn't think the plan was fair to taxpayers, and at the eleventh hour brokered the sales-tax plan with Prieto.
Prieto and Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) last week said they hoped to negotiate a new deal with Christie.
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@AndrewSeidman