NJ Transit releases service schedule for American Dream

By: NJBIZ Staff / editorial@njbiz.com

As part of an initial phase of service to the American Dream mall, New Jersey Transit will operate express bus service from New York City and Secaucus beginning with the mall’s opening Oct. 25 and expanding three local bus routes beginning Aug. 31.

American Dream is scheduled to open after years of delays and some citizens have expressed concerns about traffic congestion.

Two bus routes will operate daily express service to American Dream every 30 minutes: a new route, the No. 355, from the Port Authority Bus Terminal and No. 356 from Secaucus Junction.

To provide transportation options for American Dream employees prior to the opening, three local bus routes – the Route No. 85, which operates from Hoboken/Union City to Secaucus; Route No. 703, which operates from Paterson/Passaic to East Rutherford; and Route No. 772, which operates from Hackensack to the Meadowlands – will expand their operating hours and include stops at American Dream beginning on Aug. 31.

These three bus lines initially will stop at the Racetrack at the Meadowlands until completion of the dedicated hub at American Dream and will continue operations once opened.

Route No. 772 will expand to include Saturday and Sunday service. Transit will implement the augmented weeknight and new weekend service effective Aug. 31.

To utilize Route No. 356 express bus service from Secaucus Junction, customers may travel on any rail line that serves Secaucus Junction or any of the five Transit bus routes that serve Secaucus Junction and transfer to Route No. 356 express bus for direct service to American Dream.

Transit will monitor any possible crowds at both Secaucus and PABT and ensure that demand is properly met with commensurate service.

The Oct. 25 grand opening of American Dream will feature the launch of the property’s indoor, 16-acre Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park and DreamWorks Water Park; North America’s first indoor snow sports center, Big SNOW Ski and Snowboard Park; the Ice Rink – an NHL‐size skating and hockey facility; and Angry Birds 18‐hole Miniature Golf experience, along with many destination retail shops.

Gateway: Despite little progress, Murphy admin, state Congressional leaders remain optimistic

Rendering for the Portal North Bridge. - GATEWAY DEVELOPMENT CORP.

By Daniel J. Munoz / dmunoz@njbiz.com

The Murphy administration and New Jersey’s Congressional delegation are maintaining confidence that the trans-Hudson River Gateway Tunnel and Portal Bridge will garner federal funding and approval, despite little progress over the past year from the Trump White House, which has held the project up in what some argue is purely a political move.

“New Jersey is ready to get started on America’s next big infrastructure project, but we can’t do that until the Trump administration stops its delays and removes its artificial roadblocks," Murphy said Wednesday morning at a press conference at the New Jersey Transit Secaucus Junction station.

Gov. Phil Murphy speaks at the NJ Transit Secaucus Junction station
on Aug. 28, 2019.

The event largely mirrored a similar press conference from the year before where Gov. Phil Murphy said the Portal Bridge project was “shovel-ready” and simply needed a nod from the federal government and dollars to boot.

The 2018 press conference was held at park overlooking the Portal North Bridge, a swing drawbridge on the Northeast Corridor Line that frequently gets stuck and needs to manually be put back into place. Wednesday's press event was scheduled to be held at the same place, but moved due to inclement weather.

The Trump administration has been opposed to the projects, backtracking on a promise by the Obama administration to fund the plan 50/50 and arguing that whatever applications are submitted lack critical information to make them eligible for consideration.

A shutdown of either the bridge and tunnel - or reduced capacity to address critical repairs - could cripple the line which accommodates 200,000 New Jersey commuters daily, and upward of 800,000 who traverse the line to travel up and down the East Coast.

Proponents of the tunnel argue that progress among New York, New Jersey and Amtrak for the two projects, collectively called Gateway, with a $30 billion price tag has lurched forward.

An application for tunnel funding last week scaled down the price tag by $1.4 billion from $12.7 billion to $11.3 billion - half of which would be jointly funded by New Jersey and New York, which the parties said could likely make the application more attractive.

“We’ve done everything we have to do in terms of the regulatory approval process and providing the funding on the state level,” said U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6th District.

U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th District, said Wednesday that he has been involved in promising talks with the head of the Federal Transit Administration. “I spoke to the FTA just last week, and I heard for the very first time, 'no more excuses'. They acknowledged that we have taken every single step to get this thing off the ground,” he said.

Meanwhile, Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the past year, which Malinowski said allowed for Congressional approval of money earmarked for the project. But the FTA denied funding for both projects in March, ranking them both as “medium-low” and ineligible for funding, despite the federal dollars from Congress.

U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer, Frank Pallone, 
Tom Malinowski, Albio Sires 
and Mikie Sherrill arrive in Secaucus 
on Aug. 28, 2019 - DANIEL J. MUNOZ

“None of the non-[Capital Investment Grants] funds are committed or budgeted. All of the funds are planned or uncertain,” the FTA wrote in its decision.

“No funding is currently available to cover unexpected CIG capital cost increases or funding shortfalls,” the statement continues. “[NJ Transit] did not demonstrate access to funds via additional debt capacity, cash reserves, or other committed funds to cover annual system wide operating expenses in excess of the current forecast."

Jerry Zaro, who heads the Gateway Development Corp., which would physical accept the state and federal dollars and oversee the project, said that the creation of the GDC is a major step for the project.

“We aren’t standing still,” Zaro added, pointing to, “construction on some of the things you don’t see… 11-12 projects underway, preparatory projects, because of the help from our Congressional delegation we now have the funding to pay for that.”

Drivers rest assured, NJ's gas tax will not go up this year

New Jersey's gas tax will not increase for the upcoming year. - PIXABAY

By Daniel J. Munoz / dmunoz@njbiz.com

New Jersey's gas tax will stay at 41.4 cents a gallon for the next year, the state treasury announced Wednesday following concerns that a recent decline in sales could lead to an increase to the surcharge.

Meanwhile, the state’s diesel fuel tax will stay at 48.4 cents per gallon, State Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio said Wednesday morning.

Lawmakers and state officials had speculated that a gas tax increase could be announced in August, due to the heightened popularity of electric hybrid vehicles leading to a continuing decline in sales which would prompt the gas tax to continually increase.

That reasoning has led to some lawmakers, such as Assemblywoman Patricia Egan Jones, D-5th District, to push for a “road user fee” that would be levied against anyone who drives on New Jersey’s roads.

“We’ve heard from a lot of folks with electric vehicles, plus we have the hybrids who are reducing how much gallons people buy. We are definitely going to be addressing how they use the roads. And isn’t a gas tax a user fee?” Egan Jones, who services as vice-chair of the Assembly Transportation and Independent Authorities Committee, said at a Woodbridge event hosted by the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey in March.

Gas tax money goes into the state’s multi-billion dollar Transportation Trust Fund, which finances roads, railways and other infrastructure projects across the state. Over the TTF’s eight-year lifespan, the state will put $16 billion into the fund, or $2 billion a year.

Under state law, if gasoline revenue goes up, the tax rate decreases; if the gas consumption goes down, the tax must increase. The most recent increase was an addition of 4.3 cents in October.
The biggest increase was in 2016, when it shot up by 23 cents from among the lowest in the country.