THUNDER ROAD: Christie open to more toll booths on state highways?

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Are more tolls in our future, Save Jerseyans?

The only honest answer: maybe. As amazing as it is to type!

On Wednesday night during NJ 101.5’s monthly ‘Ask the Governor’ radio program, Governor Chris Christie told the audience that he won’t rule out adding toll booths to state highways as one method of replenishing the Transportation Trust Fund.

“There are some complications with that because those roadways are interstate highways that we use federal funds for,” Christie hedged. “But if the Legislature saw fit to do that there are legal ways that you could work through that issue.”

“It’s not impossible, let’s put it that way,” he added later in the program

Folks who support a gas tax or toll hike/expansion option argue, in part, that it’s at least a tax that falls heavily on non-New Jersey residents. Those same stake-holders refuse to acknowledge the MANY alternatives to hiking the gas tax including tackling New Jersey’s highest-in-America road maintenance costs out of fear of angering their Big Labor backers. Don’t let’em tell you it’s anything other than that. They’re lying.

“Remarkably, what is still missing from the ‘discussion’ (the Trenton-speak term so often used) on the Transportation Trust Fund is any attempt at all to address the outrageous costs of building and maintaining New Jersey roads,” Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris) argued on Wednesday after Senate Democrats pitched a major gas tax hike. “Under the NJDOT’s own numbers, New Jersey’s roads are the most expensive in the nation, an extreme outlier even among our neighboring states. Any solution to the Transportation Trust Fund must include real and credible savings and efficiencies so that New Jersey’s taxpayers will know that their money is being spent wisely.”

Christie isn’t wrong about the the percentages. “Estimates are somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of the gas tax would be paid by out-of-staters,” he explained. “You’re getting at the same kind of thing. You’re trying to skin the cat just in a different way.” That still doesn’t make it a good option.

Here’s the video:

FYI – The last round of toll hikes went into effect during the Christie years but were a creation of the Corzine years. New tolls would be a purely Christie legacy.

This is what it’s come to…

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Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8405 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

7 Comments

  1. Insane… we pay pretty much if not the most road taxes in this state and these roads are horrible! 2 or 3 years to finish a 6 month job and potholes everywhere. Tolls are insanely high as it is. Maybe if we actually spent some of this money on the roads it might be worth it. New Jersey is the highest cost in everything, no wonder why everyone is moving. Living here I can’t even save enough to move lol

  2. New Jersey’s gas tax is 14.5 cents per gallon. NY’s is 46 cents, Pa.’s is 51.6 and Delaware’s is 23 cents. Only Alaska has a lower gas tax.

    Seems like a no-brainer but this Fat Pig doesn’t want to raise anything that has the word tax in it. He’d rather find other ways to take your money.

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