In his budget address, Gov. Chris Christie swept aside claims the state’s Transportation Trust Fund is in trouble.
“To imply that the TTF is in crisis and is suddenly and unexpectedly run out of money is just a politically driven mischaracterization,” he said Feb. 16.
“I’m just startled that the governor seemed to feel there’s no problem. If we don’t have any money for our transportation needs, bridges fall down, tunnels collapse. It’s just not a sustainable situation,” said former Gov. Jim Florio.
Florio was among those at an NJ Spotlight roundtable on New Jersey’s transportation future, wondering how Gov. Christie could downplay the lack of a definite future funding source for the TTF to improve the state’s transportation system.
Are we in a crisis?
“We could be. The governor might figure out, the governor has lots of powers. He might figure out some way that it might not seem like a crisis, like he did about a year ago,” said Martin Robins, director emeritus of the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University.