N.J. transportation leader: Lawmakers will find funds for projects

Gov. Christie's transportation commissioner on Friday continued to drum up support for replenishing New Jersey's near-empty fund for transit projects, suggesting to South Jersey business leaders that key players in Trenton are committed to finding new revenue.

"The discussion already underway in New Jersey is very different than what we have seen nationally or in years past," Commissioner Jamie Fox told a gathering of the Southern New Jersey Development Council at Rowan University.

The issue is perhaps the top priority in Trenton because New Jersey's Transportation Trust Fund will run out of money for capital projects at the start of the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The state must develop a plan soon to qualify for federal matching funds.

All revenues from the state's 14.5-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline go toward debt service, which will climb to $1.2 billion next fiscal year.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) has said the fund needs $2 billion in new revenue annually.

Fox, a longtime Democratic operative appointed to his new post by Christie a month ago, wouldn't say Friday how new revenue should be raised.

But he did say the state needed a "recurring source of funding" that would be constitutionally dedicated to transportation projects. Big transportation projects take a long time to complete, so it's critical to secure long-term funding, Fox said.

Options include raising the gasoline tax and applying the state's 7 percent sales tax to motor fuels sales, among other possibilities. Christie, a Republican who is considering running for president in 2016, in the past has opposed a gas tax hike but now says "everything is on the table."

Of particular interest to the South Jersey audience was the fate of the proposed $1.6 billion Glassboro-Camden light rail, or the "Sweeney line," as Fox called it.

Funding for the project has been elusive thus far. Sweeney has said that Transportation Trust Fund money should help finance the project.

"That is a project that they are committed to building," Fox said of Christie and Sweeney.