Money questions raised for Route 1 area bypass

As plans progress for the former Millstone Bypass, questions remain if there is sufficient financing to carry out the project.

By: David Campbell
   After two years of mediation, the draft environmental review of the former Millstone Bypass is finally in the hands of the Federal Highway Administration, which is expected to approve the document sometime this month.
   Public comments will then be taken, and the state Department of Transportation is expected to follow with a recommended alternative that opposing parties in the longstanding controversy may at least be able to live with.
   But with a resolution taking place as the economy is faltering, will the state be able to finance the road?
   DOT spokeswoman Anna Farneski said the agency is reluctant to speculate on funding before an alternative is selected and the scope of the project is known. But she noted, "Funding these days is always a challenging issue."
   Confronting record deficits, Gov. James E. McGreevey has asked the transportation agency to cut operational expenses this year by 10 percent, Ms. Farneski continued.
   On the other hand, capital spending by the DOT has been level at about $2.6 billion annually for the last two years, but funding is still tight with many projects under the state’s deferred-maintenance program coming due, she said.
   "We have many needs and never enough funding," the spokeswoman said.
   Jon Carnegie, senior project manager with the Voorhees Transportation Policy Institute at Rutgers University, said that whichever of the 19 roadway alternatives currently under review the DOT recommends, funding it will be a matter of timing.
   "The current fiscal crunch is somewhat related to the economic cycle, and economic cycles come and go," Mr. Carnegie said. "The need documented in the environmental impact statement is going to stay there. So there will be a time in the future when there is funding for the project, but exactly when remains to be seen."
   The DOT enlisted the institute to draft the EIS after Gov. Christie Whitman rejected the DOT’s recommendation favoring the Millstone Bypass in 2000.
   According to estimates presented by the institute to an advisory round table convened when Rutgers took over the project, the preliminary cost estimates for the project range from $12 million to $97.5 million, depending on what combinations of roadway elements are used in the alignment that is selected.
   Nineteen variations of seven broad road-alignment schemes are under review, as well as a no-build alternative. The estimate does not include costs for right-of-way acquisitions, environmental mitigation or contaminated-materials remediation, Mr. Carnegie said.
   The most expensive variation includes Route 1 in a below-grade underpass of Washington Road, which the round table tentatively seems to favor. The cost to excavate Route 1 would be around $18 million. An additional $27 million would be needed for a cut-and-cover plaza, according to the Rutgers team.
   Mr. Carnegie said a lot financially will depend on what happens at the federal level.
   Each year, the Federal Highway Administration uses a formula to determine how much transportation funding to allocate to each state. The state DOT then decides which projects it will finance using this annual sum.
   Typically, roadway projects in New Jersey are 80-percent federally funded, with the remaining 20 percent provided by the state, Mr. Carnegie continued.
   This year, the fate of both funding sources is uncertain.
   The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, the federal legislation currently in effect that allocates Federal Highway Administration funds, expires Sept. 30. Appropriations under the new legislation that will replace it, called Safe and Flexible Transportation Efficiency Act of 2002 or SAFETEA, have yet to be finalized.
   According to Mr. Carnegie, the last census created a power shift in Washington, giving more clout to southern and western states, which he said historically are more highway-oriented, while the Northeast traditionally has had greater mass-transit needs.
   Insiders say the highway program may get greater emphasis in the federal bill, which would mean the Northeast gets less of the transit pie overall for roadways and mass transit, Mr. Carnegie continued.
   At the same time, New Jersey’s Transportation Trust Fund is also up for renewal, but it still is unclear how the state will raise the needed money. As a result, Gov. McGreevey has created a blue-ribbon commission to recommend possible financing sources for when the fund expires next year.
   West Windsor Township Councilwoman Alison Miller, who participated in the round table, said she believes the financing will be in place for the Penns Neck area project.
   George Hawkins, executive director of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, which also had a seat at the round table, said New Jersey needs to push for its fair share of federal funds.
   Mr. Hawkins said the DOT will have to weigh funding the Penns Neck project next to other "worthy" projects, but said he believed it would get priority because of the Route 1 corridor’s significance to the state’s economy.
   Plainsboro Township Mayor Peter Cantu said he hoped the funding will be put in place to advance the project on a timely basis.
   "I think there needs to be a resolution on this to address traffic problems in the area," Mayor Cantu said.
   The draft EIS was sent to the Federal Highway Administration late last month, Ms. Farneski said.
   Comments and approval of the draft document by the highway agency are expected this month, with public distribution of the document expected in June. The projected 45-day public-comment period, which will include formal hearings possibly as soon as June 30, is tentatively set to end July 25, the spokeswoman said.
   No date is set for the DOT’s release of its final EIS, which will include input from the public comment period and a recommended roadway alignment.
   The former 2.3-mile Millstone Bypass has been in dispute since 1986, when the DOT first submitted the alignment to solve the traffic dilemma in the Penns Neck area of Route 1.