Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Commuters Feel Pinch as Christie Tightens

New Jersey is spending about $900 million to rebuild the Pulaski Skyway, a link between Newark's airport and the Holland Tunnel.Credit...Librado Romero/The New York Times

As a standard-bearer of fiscal conservatism, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey won over voters with his aggressive, no-excuses approach to taming budget problems and identifying the parties he held responsible for them. He has sparred with unions, cut spending and sworn off raising taxes, including the state’s low gasoline tax.

But no one can accuse him of pandering to the state’s commuting hordes. His approach to financing for transportation has led to big increases in transit fares and higher tolls on highways. And according to analysts and some elected officials, it could soon cause tolls on the bridges and tunnels leading to New York City to reach or exceed $10.

Last May, rail commuters using New Jersey Transit saw fares go up an average of 22 percent, while service was reduced. Five months later, Mr. Christie, a Republican, canceled an $8.7 billion project that would have built two rail tunnels between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, intended to ease congestion for New Jersey Transit riders. In doing so, he turned back $6 billion of outside financing, surprising the state’s Congressional delegation.

Then he pushed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to take $1.8 billion that the agency had pledged to the tunnel project and use it for road and bridge improvements in North Jersey. Meanwhile, an increase in highway tolls that was meant, in part, to pay for the tunnel is still scheduled for next year.

“Commuters are definitely not on his Christmas card list,” said Paul A. Sarlo, a Democratic state senator from Wood-Ridge who is chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.

In office about a half and a year, Mr. Christie has battled teachers’ unions and leaders of municipalities trying to find ways to balance their own budgets with less state aid. The effects have been pronounced: This year, the vast majority of school districts with budgets on the ballot have proposed raising their taxes by no more than 2 percent, observing the limit set by the governor’s tax cap.

Transit advocates said they feared that the governor might undo New Jersey’s progressive stance on developing mass transit systems, which had been “nationally recognized,” said Kate Slevin, the executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which promotes public transit.

“Governor Christie has sort of stepped back from that,” Ms. Slevin said, noting that the governor had taken a very different path than his Democratic predecessor, Jon S. Corzine, a longtime Wall Street executive, who was a champion of easing the commute into New York.

“I don’t think you’re going to see transportation across the Hudson River improve much under Governor Christie,” she added.

For his part, Mr. Christie says his approach is more responsible because he plans to borrow less than Mr. Corzine did to maintain the state’s crowded network of roads. His press secretary, Michael Drewniak, said the governor’s proposed budget would keep the subsidy for mass transit “essentially whole.”

Mr. Drewniak added that Mr. Christie had told officials of New Jersey Transit to “explore affordable solutions to the trans-Hudson commuting capacity challenge,” like expanding the use of bilevel train cars and looking for ways to make Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan more efficient. The governor has also pledged to contribute as much as $150 million to the rebuilding of the Portal Bridge, a key rail link between Newark and New York, if Amtrak can obtain federal financing for the project, a spokesman for New Jersey Transit said.

But others say that the governor’s policy merely transfers the financial burden from state taxpayers to drivers, not only in New Jersey but also in surrounding states.

Jeffrey Zupan, an analyst with the Regional Plan Association, said that by directing the Port Authority to reapportion $1.8 billion to projects that primarily benefit New Jersey, Mr. Christie could inspire Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, to seek a similar arrangement to solve one of New York State’s many infrastructure riddles, like repairing or replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge north of the city. The two governors share control of the Port Authority.

Mr. Zupan said the projects that Mr. Christie had identified, like the rebuilding of the Pulaski Skyway, were not the kind of “truly regional” project that the Port Authority was supposed to take on.

“I suspect that Cuomo is going to ask the Port Authority to pay for something that’s not an interstate facility,” he said.

Executives inside the agency and state officials in Trenton tried to dampen that speculation, suggesting that the $1.8 billion that Mr. Christie sought came out of the $3 billion that the Port Authority had allocated to the rail tunnel. Redirecting that money would not necessarily prompt a request for financing for road improvements on the New York side, they said. But a Cuomo spokesman declined to say whether Mr. Cuomo agreed.

Mr. Christie’s transportation commissioner, James Simpson, told state lawmakers at a recent budget hearing that tapping the Port Authority for projects that would normally receive federal financing would save time and money.

“If the feds are involved, it’s going to take longer,” he said.

Without the Port Authority money, Mr. Simpson said, New Jersey would have to spend about $30 million a year just to keep the Pulaski Skyway — a 70-year-old bridge that serves as a link between Newark Liberty International Airport and the Holland Tunnel — from falling down. Now, it will invest about $900 million over five years to “basically rebuild the whole bridge.”

Still, Mr. Zupan and Senator Sarlo said, it seems inevitable that the Port Authority will need to introduce a steep increase to the tolls for crossing the Hudson. Regional transportation analysts predicted that the tolls, now at $8 per car, would rise, possibly before the end of the year. An increase to $10 or more is not out of the question, they said, now that the undiscounted toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is $13.

“If they ever raise the toll, be it to $11 or $10 or $9, they should publicly make a good case as to what they will do with the money,” Mr. Zupan said.

The impact on drivers outside New Jersey may also be felt on the New Jersey Turnpike: that highway’s authority has proposed eliminating toll discounts for drivers who have E-ZPass accounts through agencies in other states.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: Commuters Feel Pinch As Christie Tightens. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT