New Jersey train crash turns spotlight on
Christie, funding crisis
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[October 01, 2016]
By Joseph Ax
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A deadly New Jersey
Transit train crash this week has renewed questions about Republican
Governor Chris Christie's hard-nosed approach to a public transit
funding crisis, even as he announced a compromise on Friday to pay for
long-delayed construction projects.
The timing of Friday's announcement seemed telling, despite the fact
there is no evidence of a link between the crash and a lack of funding,
said Brigid Callahan Harrison, a political science professor at
Montclair State University.
"I think this put considerable pressure on the governor and the state
legislature to fix a situation that had not been solved since August,"
she said.
A spokesman for Christie, however, said the meeting with legislative
leaders to discuss a potential resolution was scheduled days before the
Hoboken tragedy.
New Jersey Transit, among the busiest commuter rail systems in the
United States, has suffered from huge budget pressures as Christie and
state legislative leaders have sparred over how to pay for much needed
infrastructure improvements, experts said.
Thursday's crash inside Hoboken Terminal killed one woman and injured
more than 100 others after the train hurtled into the station, smashing
through a platform and collapsing a section of the roof.
On Friday, Christie and the Democratic leaders of the legislature's two
houses announced a $16 billion deal to fund the state's transportation
trust fund, which provides money for capital projects for highways and
public transit, through 2025.
The trust fund had essentially gone bankrupt earlier this summer after
Christie and legislators could not agree on how to replenish it. The
governor declared a state of emergency in July and froze hundreds of
ongoing projects, including $2.7 billion worth of New Jersey Transit
work.
Christie has been the "biggest obstacle to restoring solvency to the
transportation trust fund," said Janna Chernetz, the director of New
Jersey policy for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, an advocacy
group.
She said Friday's deal, while good news, would keep funding basically
level when adjusted for inflation.
"It's just unfortunate that it took this much to get this little," she
said.
The accident's cause remains unknown. In an opinion piece in the
Star-Ledger newspaper on Friday, the state's transportation
commissioner, Richard Hammer, called it "irresponsible" to suggest any
link between the trust fund shutdown and the Hoboken crash.
New Jersey Transit's funding problems go well beyond the trust fund,
however. The state's direct subsidy for the agency's operating budget
has decreased 90 percent in the last dozen years, according to transit
experts, even as ridership has grown 20 percent.
Approximately one-fifth of the annual operating budget has come from the
capital budget, according to Chernetz.
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York governor Andrew
Cuomo (R) arrive for a press conference after a New Jersey Transit
train derailed and crashed through the station in Hoboken, New
Jersey, U.S. September 29, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Meanwhile, the agency has been without an executive director since
last year and has canceled every public board meeting since June,
leaving observers in the dark about how it plans to close a massive
budget gap this year.
"Infrastructure is a basic building block of our economy in New
Jersey for all the obvious reasons, starting with the fact that
we're a corridor state," said Loretta Weinberg, the Democratic
majority leader in the state Senate and a vocal Christie critic.
"All the governor has ever done is cancel, veto or stand in the way
of moving ahead."
Christie's spokesman responded by pointing out that Christie was the
first governor in decades to agree to a gas tax increase. At
Friday's news conference, Christie said the deal represented the
first time he has approved a tax increase of any kind and reflected
the importance he placed on the issue.
And the Republican minority leader of the Assembly, Jon Bramnick,
noted that Democrats have had significant majorities in both houses
for more than a decade and that the issue of funding transportation
has not been adequately addressed.
"If any group or agency would come to us and say there are safety
issues and we need emergency funding, I guarantee that Republicans,
Democrats and this governor would come together and find a
solution," he said.
Harrison said Christie had long refused to increase the gas tax in
order to bolster his conservative credentials as he prepared to run
for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
"This was a foreseen situation; we knew about this two years ago,"
she said. "I think the governor bears a fair amount of the
responsibility, because for much of that time, he has been focused
on his national ambitions."
Christie, who is a key adviser for Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump, has seen his political ambitions fade after his
embroilment in the "Bridgegate" scandal.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin,
Jarrett Renshaw and Hilary Russ; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Bill
Rigby)
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