NJ Trust Fund: Alliance for Transportation Reform Platform

The Campaign's effort for strategic renewal of New Jersey's Transportation Trust Fund is gaining momentum. The Trust Fund is the main state account for transportation capital spending in NJ, currently funded by gas taxes, highway tolls and some general revenues and projected to run

dry by July. The Campaign has begun analyzing several new revenue proposals and is recruiting organizations into an umbrella coalition, the Alliance for Transportation Reform. Organizations have been asked to agree to a set of goals and principles and to assist Campaign members in producing

its proposals for refilling the Trust Fund. The Alliance platform encompasses:

e Trust Fund revenue should consist of transportation user fees that achieve an overall policy to reduce traffic congestion;

¢ Use of Trust Fund resources in congested transportation corridors should seek to implement transportation demand-management measures before opting for costly highway capacity;

¢ Promote shipping and receiving goods by rail through tax incentives, loans and grants for capital investment from the Trust Fund

e Aid to counties and municipalities for strategic planning that link congestion-mitigating transportation investments with compatible land use policies, and authorization to local governments adopting such policies to raise monies to fund transportation improvements.

e A weight-distance or axle-weight fee for trucks.

e Availability of Trust Fund resources for transit system operating costs.

e¢ Atwo-percent set aside of monies distributed from the Trust Fund for projects and programs that promote bicycle and pedestrian transportation.

Organizations outside of the usual orbit of NJ's environmental movement that have joined the Alliance include the Southern Railroad Company of NJ, T. Glennon Inc. (RR track manufacturing and repair) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The idea has been broached by NJPIRG with

a great many other actors, including the Business and Industry Association, the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, Public Service Electric and Gas, county civic and business groups, and others. NJPIRG recently garnered unusual good will among the state's business community by nominating

Rhone-Poulenc, a chemical/pharmaceutical company with a large facility in Cranbury, for a Special Governor's Award for its thorough effort to comply with Clean Air Act employer trip reduction requirements. The Washington-based Transit NOW! coalition, whose new president is former NJ

Governor Florio, has discussed exercising its NJ contacts on behalf of the Campaign's Trust Fund work. The Campaign needs to significantly expand the Alliance for Transportation Reform and flesh out its revenue proposals by mid-January. Contact Janine Bauer, 212-777-8181 or Drew Kodjak,

609-394-8155.