**The Transportation Trust Fund, New Jersey’s main source of funding for road and transit projects, is caught in a massive spiral of debt.
It didn’t happen overnight but gradually: Over the last 25 years, we have bought ourselves major transportation improvements – road widenings, interchange redesigns, new rail lines and countless other projects – without raising the money necessary to pay for them.
Instead, we’ve borrowed money. We have borrowed – and we continue to borrow – so much money that nearly every dollar we raise in taxes for transportation projects from the gas tax and other taxes, almost $900 million a year, is instead going to pay off interest and principal on bonds issued years ago.

“Spiral of Debt: The Unsustainable Structure of New Jersey’s Transportation Trust Fund”, Regional Plan Association, March 2010.

The Transportation Trust Fund goes bankrupt in just a couple of short months (July 1) but the root of the problem extends back decades, as the Regional Plan Association notes in a report that they wrote over five years ago (Read the full report here: http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Spiral-of-Debt-NJTTF.pdf). And this isn’t the first time that they’ve rung the alarm bells. Here’s what they said over 10 years ago, in November 2005:

But it would be a mistake to trust that cutbacks and revenue redirections can avert this crisis. Over two thirds of the transportation budget – $2.5 billion – is at risk. Efficiency savings would be negligible in light of this tremendous need, and revenue redirections of this magnitude would severely impede another part of the State budget. This is the cost of the transportation system on which New Jersey’s economy, its commuters, and its very ability to function depend. A solution is needed, and a large part of it will have to come in the form of new money.

“Reform, Revenue, Results: How to Save New Jersey’s Transportation System”, Regional Plan Association, November 2005

 
 
And at a recent NJ Spotlight Roundtable, Regional Plan Association president Tom Wright compared the debt service level of regional transportation agencies:

  • MTA (Metro Transit Authority): 17%
  • NY DHBTF (Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund): 17%
  • PANYNJ (Port Authority of New York and New Jersey): 27%
  • CT STF (Special Transportation Fund): 35%
  • NJ TTF (Transportation Trust Fund): 98%

There has been a chronic reluctance to fund New Jersey’s roads and bridges. This is probably due to
In a way this is understandable. New Jersey, after all, has some of the highest property taxes in the country.