Tag: gas tax

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Moody questions where N.J. share of Gateway Tunnel funding will come from

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By Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on November 25, 2015 at 7:43 AM, updated November 25, 2015 at 2:09 PM

One of the nation’s leading financial rating agencies has weighed in on the Gateway Tunnel project, deeming it necessary to the regional economy and joined others who’ve suggested charging riders to help fund the project.

Two experts have suggested charging a user fee to commuters and travelers who make between 73 million and 100 million trips a year through the 105-year old tubes under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey. Moody’s said this one possibility that could be used.

“A user fee, similar to U.S. airports passenger facility charge could generate $330 million annually for financing,” Moody’s wrote in an analysis of the Gateway project released on Tuesday. Airport passengers typically pay a $4.50 fee, the analysis said.

Phil Beachem, executive director of the N.J. Alliance for Action, proposed a user fee of $1 or $2 per trip on top of regular train fares. Jonathan Peters, a finance professor at SUNY College of Staten Island, who specializes in toll road and transportation financing has all suggested a user fee.

Moody’s didn’t question the economic need for constructing new tunnels before one of the existing 105-year old tunnels has to be closed to repair damage from Hurricane Sandy flooding.

“While the tunnel will add significant cost to a region already paying for significant infrastructure investments, it provides a vital commuter link for a regional economy with a $1.4 trillion Gross Domestic project,” Moody’s said in the analysis.

https://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/2015/11/moodys_suggests_user_fee_to_fund_gateway_tunnel_pr.html

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Opposition to NJ Gas Tax Increase Grows

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NJ Poll: Voters Tell Legislators To Keep Their Hands Off The Gas Tax

November 14, 2015 11:45 AM By David Madden

HAMDEN, CT (CBS) – With the general election now in the rear view mirror, New Jersey politicians are expected to take up a number of unpopular issues.

Tops on that list is a bid to increase the state’s gasoline tax. A new poll of Garden State voters suggests drivers want that levy left alone.

The Quinnipiac poll back in April found half of those surveyed might support an increase to help pay for road repair and such. That was the first time in eleven years the number got that high, according to pollster Mickey Carroll.

This latest poll, taken after the November Third general election, showed that support was short lived.

“People don’t like it 62 to 35,” Carroll told KYW Newsradio. “But legislators who have to decide what to do with a nearly bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund are said to be going for it.”

https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/11/14/nj-poll-voters-tell-legislators-to-keep-their-hands-off-the-gas-tax/

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Prieto reveals why Democrats are destroying New Jersey in 28 words

SpeakerVince Prieto

Posted by Matt Rooney On November 06, 2015 7 Comments

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

If you STILL don’t know or understand why New Jersey is almost irreparably screwed up, and a strengthened Democrat legislative majority is only going to make it worse, all you need to do is check out this quote from a celebratory SpeakerVince Prieto over on NJ.com.

He’s moving full-steam-ahead on the gas tax hike after Tuesday’s big win and isn’t ready to listen to any proposals that don’t raise taxes:

You can’t have something that’s revenue neutral,” Prieto said. “How are you going to fix the roads and then take the money from somewhere else? That is a ridiculous statement.”

There you have it, Save Jerseyans.

Translated: “The problem with Trenton isn’t Trenton, but that the people we “serve” aren’t sending us enough money.”

The man has balls, I’ll grant him that much. He also hates math. Study after study recognizes New Jersey as the worst (orsecond to worst) state for taxes in the entire country, a quantifiable fact further substantiated by a no-less-quantifiable herd of taxpayers fleeing New Jersey for other states. There’s a several mile traffic jam of moving vans heading west on I-80! And South on I-95. And Vince is worried about where we’re going to get the money for roads which no one can afford to drive…

So somehow, magically, we’re going to make New Jersey better for businesses, and families, by making it less affordable to live (and drive) here. #PrietoLogic! Which is apparently logic neutral.

And he can’t find ANYTHING he’d like to cut from the budget. Nothing. Not in a state notorious for no-show jobs, pension abuse, redundant departments, ponderous layers of bureaucracy and a school funding formula – where most of your property tax increase go – that spends $20k+ on urban education, per child, with nothing to show for it.

Look: everyone agrees the roads need to fixed. But we’veproposed alternatives to higher taxes including reducing the cost of maintaining our roads (which is – surprise! – also the highest in the nation) because, unlike the Speaker’s Assembly caucus, our Garden State businesses and families have no choice but to cut their budgets when times are tough. No cable next month! Less eating out.  Less shifts at the shop. Etc. and so on.

Prieto doesn’t care. ‘Cause he doesn’t get it. The few Democrats who do get it are too afraid – or bought off – by the Super PAC backers to care. Does anyone honestly believe the Dems who just won upsets riding NJEA Super PAC cash to victoryare now going to be independent of the public sector unions?

https://savejersey.com/2015/11/prieto-assembly-democrat-new-jersey-gas-tax/

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Reader says an Increase in the Gas Tax will go to pay for past promises on wages & benefits for unionized labor, not to invest in the future of the state

tr0601harris 9 KURDZUK

what are Sweeney, Sarlo and Prieto trying to do to our gasoline taxes? What’s going to happen to our property taxes? State income tax increases on the top 1%, i.e. anyone who earns over $350,000? Higher sales taxes anyone? How about all of the above. And for what you ask? To feed the vampire squid sucking the lifeblood out of the state of NJ. All of the tax revenues raised will go to pay for past promises on wages & benefits for unionized labor, not to invest in the future of the state. These thugs in Trenton won’t ask any questions, they’ll just throw more hard earned money down the black hole of pension and healthcare corruption.

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Transportation Trust Fund at Center of Endless Debate as Election Day Looms

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file photo by Boyd Loving

It’s the biggest issue nobody seems ready to do anything about. The Transportation Trust Fund, that mechanism for funding bridge and highway maintenance and mass transit projects, is mired in debt and unable to fund much of anything nowadays. But what is this TTF? What was it supposed to do and how did it get so broke. Martin Robbins spent more than a quarter century as a policy planner for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the Port Authority, NJ Transit and a host of other transportation entities. David Cruz, NJTV News Read more

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We have been told US Senator Bob Menendez to Speak at the Ridgewood Train Station today at 11am

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July 17,2015

the staff of the Ridgewood blogMenendez will reportedly be making a speech at the Ridgewood train station today Friday at 11 AM.  If you stop by you might get a glimpse of him and our mayor standing next to one another.  The speech is reportedly about NJ Transit.Our guess , US Senator Bob Menendez  (D-NJ) will most likely call for increases in long-term, dedicated Federal funding to repair and upgrade the nation’s crumbling infrastructure . Menendez  will refer to the economic and environmental reasons why increased investments are necessary, as well as the lesser-talked-about national security imperatives”Menendez may also mentioned New Jersey’s Gateway Project his first question to Therese McMillan, Acting Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration. The project includes the replacement of the Hudson River tunnels and the Portal Bridge – both of which are over 100 years old and in serious danger of failing in the near future. Menendez has stressed in the past he wants the U.S. to be well-positioned to undertake big, visionary transit projects.

If we get lucky he might bash the Presidents Iran deal or chat on the juicy of his federal indictment .

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House Dem wants to nearly double gas tax

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file photo by Boyd Loving

By Keith Laing – 07/08/15 12:49 PM EDT

Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) is co-sponsoring a bill to increase the federal gas tax to help pay for transportation projects across the nation.

The measure, which was originally sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), would increase the gas tax by 15 cents over the next three years, matching a proposal that was included in the 2011 Simpson-Bowles budget reform proposal.

Larsen said Wednesday that he is becoming the 35th co-sponsor of the measure because the gas tax, which helps pay for the nation’s infrastructure projects, has not been increased since 1993.

“When I talked with local transportation leaders, the message I got was that Congress needs to act quickly,” he said in a statement about the proposed legislation, which is known as the Update, Promote and Develop America’s Transportation Essentials (UPDATE) Act.

“Federal funds make up about a quarter of Washington state’s transportation budget each year,” Larsen continued. “We cannot have a big league economy with little league infrastructure. Raising the gas tax for the first time in more than 20 years will mean states and cities can count on funds to upgrade aging bridges, make rail crossings safer and expand transit options to reduce traffic congestion.”

The new support for the legislation to increase the gas tax comes as lawmakers are searching for money to pay for an extension of federal infrastructure funding that is currently set to expire on July 31.

Congress has been grappling since 2005 with a transportation funding shortfall that is estimated to be about $16 billion per year, and they have not passed a transportation bill that lasts longer than two years in that span.

The 18.4 cent-per-gallon federal gas tax has been the main source of transportation funding for decades, but it has not been increased since 1993, and more fuel-efficient cars have sapped its buying power.

https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/247212-house-dem-wants-to-nearly-double-gas-tax

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Officials: 200 additional N.J. bridges will become deficient in five years

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Time to Audit the Transpotatioon Trust Fund (TTF)?

APRIL 28, 2015, 6:38 PM    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2015, 7:46 AM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

An additional 200 state-owned bridges in New Jersey will become structurally deficient in the next five years — bringing the number of failing structures to nearly 500 and wiping away recent gains by the Transportation Department to reduce its long backlog of bridge repair projects, state officials said this week.

The bridges will be added to the list of 290 state-owned spans that already are defined as deficient, a designation that indicates one of the bridge’s three main elements — the deck, or the structural supports above and below the deck — is failing and needs repair, Transportation Department officials said. It does not necessarily indicate the span is unsafe.

“With the aging infrastructure that we have, this is a problem that’s not going to go away,” said Steve Schapiro, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department.

The decline is inevitable, Schapiro said. The bridges will slide into deficiency whether or not New Jersey voters and elected leaders find new revenue next year for the state’s transportation fund, which is nearly broke. Negotiations between lawmakers and Governor Christie to fix the fund, possibly by raising the gas tax, have ended for the year, Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox told The Record in March.

State Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, on Tuesday echoed that, telling New Jersey Chamber of Commerce members that a gas tax increase was unlikely because of political concerns.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/officials-200-additional-n-j-bridges-will-become-deficient-in-five-years-1.132088

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AAA Mid-Atlantic: New Jersey gas prices still falling

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Motorists continue to see lower prices at the pumps in New Jersey.

AAA Mid-Atlantic says the average price of a gallon of regular gas in the state on Friday was $2.16, down a penny from last week. That’s also much lower than the price from a year ago, when motorists were paying $3.38.

This marks the fourth straight week that pump prices have fallen in New Jersey. (Houston Chronicle)

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/AAA-Mid-Atlantic-New-Jersey-gas-prices-still-6178901.php
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No repair in sight for N.J. transportation fund; talks collapse in hunt for revenue

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No repair in sight for N.J. transportation fund; talks collapse in hunt for revenue

MARCH 25, 2015, 3:51 PM    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015, 11:07 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG AND MELISSA HAYES
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD

Negotiations to fix New Jersey’s depleted transportation funding system have broken down, the state transportation commissioner said Wednesday. That means any permanent fix — including a possible gas tax increase — probably will not happen this year, elected officials and transportation experts said.

“The likelihood of it being resolved for the moment is not ideal,” said Commissioner Jamie Fox in reference to the upcoming November election when all 80 seats of the state Assembly are on the ballot. The primary filing deadline for that race is Monday. “It’s election time, which makes it a much more difficult thing |to do.”

Since the beginning of the year, Fox and leaders of both political parties have said the state’s transportation system faces a serious budget shortfall, and they pushed to fix it immediately. The fund that pays for major transportation projects takes in $1.2 billion annually, mostly from motor fuels taxes and turnpike tolls. Nearly all the money is dedicated to paying off more than $18 billion in debt, however, with little left for big maintenance projects and new construction.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/n-j-transportation-funding-talks-over-for-now-1.1295459

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Reader says NJ Transportation Trust Fund is a Black Hole of Waste

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Reader says NJ Transportation Trust Fund is a Black Hole of Waste

Raising the gas tax is only for one reason… decades of bad management, deceptive accounting, and the continual awarding of higher wages and benefits to union workers without adequate funding by governors and legislatures.

Raising gasoline taxes in a state that is already the nation’s highest taxed isn’t plausible, and it only goes to fund a BLACK HOLE… NJ spends 12X the national average and 3X the next highest state at over $2 million per mile of state road; the whole system is corrupt (see this if you haven’t read it already https://watchdog.org/201704/new-jersey-gas-tax-highways-cost/ ). Given the gravity of the situation, no part of the status quo is acceptable, and yet Senators Sarlo and Sweeney just blindly want to raise taxes on our gasoline to keep their gravy train for overpaid union labor going..

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New Jersey Last again tops nation in auto insurance rates and only lower gas prices are keeping state from most expensive place to own a car.

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file photo Boyd Loving

New Jersey Last again tops nation in auto insurance rates and only lower gas prices are keeping state from most expensive place to own a car.
March 23,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says New Jersey motorists paid an average of $1,220 in 2012. That’s about 49 percent more than the national average of $815.https://newjersey.news12.com/news/report-new-jersey-tops-nation-in-auto-insurance-rates-1.10103446

A lesser known fact is that New Jersey is now the 5th most expensive state to own a car , with only lower gas prices ie gas taxes keeping us from last place . ( https://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/car-ownership-costs-by-state.aspx )

Bankrate analyzed the cost of gasoline, repairs and insurance in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Labor and parts data were provided by CarMD.com, while gas spending was calculated with statistics from GasBuddy.com and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Insurance costs were compiled from National Association of Insurance Commissioners statistics.( https://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/car-ownership-costs-by-state.aspx#ixzz3VDEPJ73V )

Another reason not to raise the gas tax!

 

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A call for a Hudson-Bergen light rail extension

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A call for a Hudson-Bergen light rail extension amid the specter of criminal indictment

ENGLEWOOD — Voice projecting confidently over the noisy workday traffic, surrounded by a scrum of federal and state officials bearing chilly wind on a cold March afternoon, it was almost as if U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) wasn’t a man days away from criminal indictment by the Department of Justice over allegations that he used his seat in Washington to illegally aid a personal friend. (Brush/PolitickerNJ)

A call for a Bergen-Huson light rail extension amid the specter of indictment | New Jersey News, Politics, Opinion, and Analysis

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Highway robbery? Bill seeks probe of New Jersey road costs

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Highway robbery? Bill seeks probe of New Jersey road costs

By Mark Lagerkvist | New Jersey Watchdog

Why does New Jersey spend more on its highway system than any other state?

On the heels of reports by New Jersey Watchdog, a state senator is introducing legislation Monday to create a task force to address that question.

“When we’re spending two or three times more per mile than any other state, it’s extremely likely that significant savings can be found by the task force,” said Sen. Mike Doherty, R-Washington Township, the bill’s sponsor.

New Jersey pays in excess of $2 million a mile per year — more than 12 times higher than the national average — to maintain 3,338 miles of state-administered roads, according to a Reason Foundation study.

State transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox responded by calling the study “inaccurate and unfair” in a column published by NJ.com. However, Fox did not offer alternative figures, nor did he dispute that New Jersey has the costliest roads in the country.

“Some may quibble over how much more New Jersey spends on our highways than other states, but nobody disputes that we do spend more than everyone else,” said Doherty. “With New Jersey drivers already shouldering such a heavy tax and toll burden, it’s imperative that we find out why millions we spend on our roads get us so little in return.”

That weight will only get heavier if lawmakers pass a proposed 25-cents a gallon hike in the state gas tax. According to its proponents, the state must to raise $2 billion a year to fund its transportation projects.

The Transportation Trust Fund is almost out of cash and must repay $17 billion in debt for money already spent. That figure equals half of New Jersey’s entire annual state budget.

“It leaves us with this very, very long tail of debt,” testified David Rosen, budget officer for the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, at a public hearing in November. “Literally, out to the next 25 years, we still have over $1 billion a year in debt service for stuff we’ve already done.”

Even though TTF soon will run out of money, the state continues to build roads and bridges.

“We just don’t have any cash to do it, so we’re borrowing all the cash,” said Rosen.

The task force proposed by Doherty would be composed of 15 state officials, legislative leaders and transportation representatives. It would release its findings within six months of its organization.

https://watchdog.org/204570/new-jersey-highway-robbery/