New Jersey to Cash in $2.4 Billion of Transportation Bonds

New Jersey is expected to sell $2.4 billion of bonds held by the state’s Transportation Trust Fund Authority to pay for infrastructure upgrades, reports Nikita Biryukov for the New Jersey Monitor. Of that $2.4 billion, $1.3 will be transportation system bonds and roughly $1.1 billion will be transportation program bonds. The article does not say how the state intends to spend the cash but reports that the  fund “is charged with modernizing statewide transportation infrastructure like highways and bridges as well as providing additional capital funding for NJ Transit — New Jersey’s public transit agency.” 

“The deal comes after NJ Transit was riddled with a spate of cancellations and massive delays earlier this summer, prompting an investigation into its rail infrastructure,” though the cause of the service disruptions has not yet been identified, according to the article. Yesterday marked the announcement of a fare-free week through September 2 as a thank-you to riders for their loyalty, which drew mixed reactions so close to recent 15-percent fare hikes.

The agency approved a $3 billion operating budget in July, as well as $1.7 billion in capital spending for the 2025 fiscal year, according to another New Jersey Monitor article published last month. The operating budget includes the last $750 million of the $4.4 billion in federal COVID relief dollars. “The loss of those funds creates a roughly $767 million fiscal cliff in the agency’s next budget that lawmakers expect to fill with collections from a new corporate business surtax they enacted in late June,” Biryukov reported in July.

NJ Transit isn’t the only transportation agency facing significant budget gaps as the pandemic-era federal aid runs out and ridership rates continue to recover. Planetizen has reported on a few facing fiscal cliffs, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and the states of Maryland and California, as well as other challenges like staffing shortages that threaten service.