AASHTO Journal, 24 October 2014
New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox NJDOT photo.
Gov. Chris Christie continued this month to say he is open to various funding options including a higher tax on gasoline to bolster New Jersey’s transportation spending, while his new transportation commissioner said the state DOT does not have the money for road and tunnel projects New Jersey will need.
Christie used an Oct. 15 weekly “Ask the Governor” radio appearance, the Record newspaper reported, to repeat his recent view that “everything is on the table,” when asked if he would consider raising the motor fuel tax.
As that and other news agencies have reported, Christie until recently maintained he would not favor raising fuel taxes. But in recent weeks he shifted to leave that option open as the state Transportation Trust Fund is on course to run out in the next year.
Last month Christie, a Republican, named Democrat Jamie Fox – a former chief of New Jersey’s Department of Transportation – to again lead the agency and help get a bipartisan funding deal in the legislature.
Fox on Oct. 17 took his case for new funding to a meeting in Atlantic City of the New Jersey Society for Environmental and Economic Development, where he told business and labor officials “there has to be a revenue enhancer” for the state DOT to boost its capital spending and pay for projects including a new tunnel under the Hudson River for passenger trains into New York City.
The NJ Spotlight online publication reported Fox telling the group: “We are broke. We can let our infrastructure fall apart and become worse. Or we can put the ‘D’ and ‘R’ aside and pass a revenue enhancer, whatever that is.”