WASHINGTON — More than one-third of the bridges in New Jersey are deficient, the sixth highest among the 50 states, according to new federal highway figures.
The numbers issued by the Federal Highway Administration underscore the need for federal and state officials to find the money to fix them.
The year-end numbers show that 2,343, or 35 percent, of the state’s 6,609 bridges need repairs, cannot adequately handle traffic loads or do not meet current safety standards. Nationally, 24 percent of bridges are rated as deficient, according to the latest statistics that run through Dec. 31.
Of the 10 states with the most deficient bridges, eight are in the Northeast, including New York and Pennsylvania.
“That reflects the age of the infrastructure,” said Rocky Moretti, director of policy and research for The Road Information Program, a Washington-based transportation research group funded by insurance and construction companies, engineering firms and labor unions. “You have older bridges with a lot of traffic,”
New Jersey’s list of deficient bridges includes the heavily traveled Route 3 east bridge between Secaucus and Rutherford, where cracks in a beam forced the state Department of Transportation to temporarily close a lane in January. A 92-year-old bridge across the Assunpink Creek between Trenton and Hamilton in Mercer County has been closed for a year and a half.
“In New Jersey, our bridges aren’t old; they’re ‘mature.'” said state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). “Unfortunately, our response to this fact has been immature.”
In Trenton, Gov. Chris Christie and the Democratic lawmakers who control the state legislature have yet to agree on how to replenish the state’s Transportation Trust Fund, which finances road, bridge and mass transit projects.The trust fund is running out of money and by July 1 won’t even have enough to pay the debt service on highway bonds for old construction, let alone fund any new road and bridge repairs.
“This is way overdue,” said Tom Bracken, president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and chairman of Forward New Jersey, an advocacy group of business groups, unions and highway users that is pushing for more state highway funding. “The cans have been kicked down the road for so long.”
One possibility is an increase in the state’s gasoline tax, now 14.5 cents a gallon, the second-lowest in the U.S., behind only Alaska, which adds 11.3 cents, according to the American Petroleum Institute, the Washington-based trade group for the oil industry. All of New Jersey’s neighbors have higher gas levies per gallon: 50.5 cents in Pennsylvania, 45.09 cents in New York and 23 cents in Delaware.
Still, Gov. Chris Christie told the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Feb. 19 that he would hold the line against higher taxes.
Likewise, action to raise enough money to fully fund the federal highway trust fund has failed to move through Congress. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx last week took a bus tour of five southern states to call attention to the nation’s decaying roads and bridges and push for a new long-term highway bill.
On the federal level, however, a gas tax hike is not on the table. Obama instead has proposed taxing U.S. companies’ foreign earnings.
U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-3rd Dist.) has signed onto legislation sponsored by Rep. James Delaney (D-Md.) that would allow companies to bring back overseas earnings tax-free in exchange for buying bonds for state and local governments to fund infrastructure improvements. Delaney said that the program could generate as much as $750 billion.
And Rep. Scott Garrett (R-5th Dist.) has introduced a bill that would reduce most of the federal gas tax by the amount New Jersey and other states increase their levy, giving the states more control over the way transportation funding is spent.
“There is not a single bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., that knows more about the needs of New Jersey communities than New Jerseyans,” Garrett said. “The people of New Jersey and local officials, not the federal government, should be responsible for planning, constructing, and maintaining a safe and reliable transportation network in our state.”
While Obama, Christie and members of Congress and the state legislature talk about the need to create jobs, a failure to maintain the state’s roads and bridges will offset any efforts to grow the economy, Bracken said.
“Our infrastructure is the foundation of our state,” Bracken said. “Our workers have the longest commutes of any workers in the country. It’s a big contributor to our economy. If we let it go, shame on us.”
NJ Advance Media staff writer Claude Brodesser-Akner contributed to this report.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
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