Deadly delusion: Why the bridges go unrepaired.
Between the lines of New Jersey reaction to last week’s tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis-St. Paul was the disquieting outline of the infrastructure suicide pact that seems to bind this state’s voters and legislators.
A statistical report from the New Jersey Association of Counties, which might otherwise elicit yawns from those of us who edit newspapers, was prominently quoted throughout the state because it provided an authoritative breakdown of quietly mounting and largely deferred bridge repair costs. Residents of Mercer and Somerset counties, contemplating the horror and grief attending the death toll in Minnesota, could also learn that the estimated costs of needed bridge repairs in their own counties now stands at $130.5 million and $210.6 million respectively.
Considering the number of people here who daily travel in cars or trains over the bridges crossing into New York City or Philadelphia, the prospective maintenance tab in one’s home county would appear to be the least of our problems. A Princetonian-sighting on the Pulaski Skyway would hardly qualify as news. Small wonder then that county officials throughout New Jersey sought to focus media attention on the big picture: A total tab of $2.7 billion, over the 10 years it would take to repair or replace more than 4,000 county-owned bridges alone.
A visitor from another state or more likely another planet might expect the prospect of lives coming to a sudden end during a commute home from work to roust New Jersey taxpayers and state legislators from their shared ritual of avoiding fiscal and civic realities.
But then, such an outsider would probably be unfamiliar with the "New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund," a governmental oxymoron, since it remains unclear just how much funding, transportation or "trust" can be expected of it. This is because politicians and public are complicit in the delusion that a fund whose primary revenue source is a tax on gasoline can perpetually cover the rising cost of keeping our transportation infrastructure from crumbling without an increase in the tax.
Thus, New Jersey commentary on the Minnesota bridge disaster was rife with reminders that proposals to raise gasoline taxes to meet growing infrastructure costs are routinely declared dead on arrival by political insiders who blithely credit an understandably cranky electorate.
Why this legislative fastidiousness rules out tax increases for truly vital public purposes but not for those driven by overlapping levels of government, double-dipping public officials and unrestrained spending on public employee pensions is a mystery yet to be solved.
This much is not a mystery: The roads and bridges that so many of us spend hours on each day are aging and crumbling under the weight of an ever-expanding flow of commercial and private vehicles. Concrete and steel do not postpone their decay to accommodate the political process.