A Nervous First Step On A Long Journey

In signing a bill to confer official status on the Tri-State Transportation Committee Governor Hughes had this to say:

I consider the enactment of this inter-State compact, modest though it is in some respects, to be of inestimable value to the three States in resolving their common transportation problems.

The chief value is a crass but highly practical one, like money. Unless some inter-State planning agency exists, there’s no way of bargaining for certain federal funds. With official status conferred on it, the Tri-State Transportation Commission will qualify as our bargaining agent. This means a steady flow of federal grants. Unfortunately they cannot be used for anything more tangible than planning, because the Tri-State Transportation Commission is limited to that function. This is what Mr. Hughes meant by "modest".

For once New Jersey is a leader instead of a dragger in regional activity. New York and Connecticut have yet to enact parallel legislation and thus put the Commission in business. But this is regarded as little more than a formality, since both States have previously concurred on such an agency and it has been New Jersey that demurred.

With the scope of the Commission so tightly limited, there was hardly any reason to oppose the establishment of official status. Yet there was opposition.

A group called the North Jersey Government Study Committee, which drew all of 13 persons to its latest meeting in Glen Rock, did some last-minute badgering of legislators in an effort to kill the bill. One of the reasons it advanced was little short of hilarious. The Commission, this group of thinkers said, could become a threat to local zoning and planning. It couldn’t possibly! It has nothing whatsoever to do with local zoning or planning, and even if it did any change it proposed would have to be approved by the local governing body. That’s the law. But this is the sort of confused, or perhaps venomous nonthinking that has made it so difficult for New Jersey to lead or even participate in regional planning. The terror psychology works wonders on legislators even when they know it’s guff or bluff.

The Tri-State Transportation Commission will achieve no miracles. But it will provide a planning and communication agency for three States sorely plagued by transportation problems. And it will bring some federal money into the area, which means that we shall be getting back more of that federal tax dollar we have been shipping off to Washington so grudgingly all these years.

Still needed, of course, is something bolder than the tri-State group if the commuter railroads are to stay in business. The State Highway Department has proposed a pilot project to keep Erie Lackawanna commuter trains running for the next 16 months. Ingenious as the plan is, it is still but temporary. Consolidation of commuter rail operation under one government agency looks more and more like the only permanent answer.