Senate President Stephen Sweeney unveiled a measure Tuesday to appropriate $400 million from the state’s Transportation Trust Fund for “immediate bridge and road repairs,” addressing some of the infrastructure investments Gov. Chris Christie called for in his budget address last month but notably omitting additional funding for NJ Transit.
“The funding will come from existing resources from the [Transportation Trust Fund] and it will be used for state roads, bridges and tunnels in every county in New Jersey,” Sweeney said in an emailed statement. “This will expedite the needed investment in the state’s infrastructure and provide an increase in support for transportation work in the current fiscal year.”
State spending on transportation projects through the Transportation Trust Fund is currently budgeted at $1.6 billion for the 2017 fiscal year. Sweeney’s bill would increase the appropriation to $2 billion, with the additional sum “intended” to be spent within 100 days of the bill’s enactment.