Joint Statement of Governors Christie and Cuomo on Congressional Failure to Pass Hurricane Sandy Relief Package

Trenton, NJ – With all that New York and New Jersey and our millions of residents and small businesses have suffered and endured, this continued inaction and indifference by the House of Representatives is inexcusable. It has now been 66 days since Hurricane Sandy hit and 27 days since President Obama put forth a responsible aid proposal that passed with a bipartisan vote in the Senate while the House has failed to even bring it to the floor. This failure to come to the aid of Americans following a severe and devastating natural disaster is unprecedented. The fact that days continue to go by while people suffer, families are out of their homes, and men and women remain jobless and struggling during these harsh winter months is a dereliction of duty. When American citizens are in need we come to their aid. That tradition was abandoned in the House last night.

The people of our states can no long afford to wait while politicians in Washington play games.

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Announce Reopening of World Trade Center and Exchange Place PATH Service on Monday, November 26

Trenton, NJ – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that weekday PATH service will resume to Lower Manhattan along the World Trade Center line beginning Monday, November 26 at 5 a.m.

The World Trade Center PATH line will run Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., with stops in New Jersey at Newark, Harrison, Journal Square, Grove Street and Exchange Place and in New York at the World Trade Center. Disabled access will be available at Newark and World Trade Center.

Floodwater from the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy had inundated the World Trade Center station, covering its track bed with several feet of water. Port Authority PATH crews have worked around the clock to remove millions of gallons of water from the tracks and platforms and also to fix and replace damaged switching and signal systems as quickly as possible. Weekend service will not yet be available to enable crews to continue the remaining necessary repair work.

The restored service to the World Trade Center will be in addition to the PATH service currently running from Newark in New Jersey to 33rd Street in New York. That line is running seven days a week between the hours of 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. and includes stops in New Jersey at Newark, Harrison, Journal Square, Grove Street and Newport stations and stops in New York at 9th, 14th, 23rd and 33rd Street. Once service resumes at the World Trade Center on Monday, service on the 33rd Street line will resume running between Journal Square and 33rd Street and will make all station stops including Christopher Street in Manhattan.

Weekend service on the Journal Square to 33rd Street line extends to Harrison and Newark in New Jersey. Disabled passengers have access to the platforms at Newark, Journal Square, Newport and 33rd Street.

Service at the Hoboken station, which saw unprecedented and widespread flooding remains suspended due to the fact vital switching equipment was destroyed and cannot be salvaged. Crews are working 24/7 to replace the signal equipment and restore communications in the tunnels, a process that is expected to take several weeks.

To provide additional mass transit options from Hoboken to Manhattan, the Port Authority and New Jersey Transit are operating a ferry service from the Hoboken Ferry Terminal. NJ Transit customers will now be able to take a bus to the Hoboken Ferry Terminal and then transfer to a ferry that will take passengers to Pier 79 at 39th street in Manhattan. The fare is $5 and ferries will run back and forth between Hoboken and Manhattan from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday thru Friday. Free shuttle buses will be provided from Pier 79 to midtown Manhattan.

Passengers who normally use the Hoboken station to get to Manhattan can also choose to make the ten minute walk to the Newport station, or take advantage of several other ferry and bus alternatives. Ferry service to Lower Manhattan is available from Liberty State Park and to Midtown Manhattan from Weehawken, New Jersey. In addition, NJ Transit has increased the number of No. 106 buses from Hoboken to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in both directions.

For up-to-date information on PATH service, visit the Port Authority’s website at www.panynj.gov/path/and follow them on Twitter @PATHTweet.

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Middlesex County PACs Update

Middlesex County Democratic Chairman Peter Barnes is responding to the controversy over the Middlesex County PACs that are circumventing the State’s pay to pay laws by ranting that Governor Christie is doing the same thing, according to a story at Politickernj that also takes credit for breaking the PACs story last month, even though Harold V. Kane broke the story here at MMM last September.

Someone should tell Barnes, and Politickernj’s Darryl Isherwood, that Democratic NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is employing the exact same fund raising technique to promote his agenda in New York that Christie is using in New Jersey.

All of this ranting about PACs and 501(c)4’s circumventing the pay to pay laws is silly.  The campaign finance system is working exactly the way it was designed to work.  It decreases transparency and gives politicians something to shout at each other about while the public tunes out to pay attention to something more entertaining.   That’s what the system was designed to do!

Note to Isherwood:  The New York Times broke the story about Cuomo’s use of a 501(c)4.

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Christie And Cuomo Direct Port Authority To Scale Back Toll Hikes

Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York sent a joint letter to Port Authority Chairman David Samson and Vice Chairman Stanley Grayson today directing that the toll and fare increases the authority proposed two weeks ago be scaled back and that a comprehensive audit of the capital plan and operations take place.

A copy of the governors’ letter can be found here.

Christie and Cuomo said that their commissioners were able to identify $5 billion in savings within the capital plan over the last two weeks. 

Imagine what they could have found if they weren’t in a hurry.

Tolls for cars on the Hudson River crossings will increase by $1.50 in September and then $.75 in December in each year from 2012-2015.  The Port Authority’s proposal would have raised these tolls by $4.00 in September. Overall tolls on cars will increase by $4.50 over the next five years rather than the $6.00 PANYNJ proposed over four years.

Drivers paying cash rather than using EZ Pass will pay a $2.00 penalty.

Tolls on trucks using EZ Pass will increase by $2.00 per axle in September, and then an additional $2.00 per year per axle starting in December, 2012-2015.

Trucks paying cash will pay the same increases, plus $3.00 per axle.

Fares on the PATH trains will increase $.25 per year for the next four years.

The governors said that these increases would stop the fiscal crisis at Port Authority and allow for the completion of the World Trade Center and hundreds of other projects that “will ensure the safety and economic viability of a transportation system that millions of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans rely on.”

This toll deal, since the Port Authority’s initial announcement through today’s joint letter by the governors is just too cute for my liking.

Why institute five years worth of toll increases before the comprehensive audit is completed?  What happens if the audit reveals another $5 billion in savings?  Will tolls be reduced by another $2.50 like the governors were able to reduce the proposed increases with $5 billion in savings discovered in two weeks?  Who will conduct the audit?  Is prevailing wage on the table for reform? Will the audit be made public?  How long will the audit take to complete?

If there is a real fiscal crisis at PANYNJ with a possibility of defaulting on bonds, a more reasonable alternative would have been to grant temporary toll and fare increases, for six months to a year, until the audit could be completed, studied and money saving reforms implemented.

The fact that this fiasco happened during two weeks in August while so many people are vacationing before the back to school rush increases my cynicism and disappointment.  It makes me fear what might be in store for us during the last two weeks of December and during the lame duck session of the legislature.

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Reduce Costs Before Raising Tolls: It Is Time To Reform “Prevailing Wage”

By Art Gallagher

Perhaps lost in the news of the S & P down grade of United States Treasury debt is the local news that the Port Authority of NY/NJ is calling for a massive toll and fare increases to fund capital projects.  Tolls on Hudson River crossings would increase from $8 to $12 and fares on the PATH trains would increase from $1.75 to $2.75.

Governors Christie and Cuomo issued a joint statement that signals that toll increases are coming, but at lower rate than proposed by the Port Authority Board.  We’ve seen this dance before.  Port Authority proposes a huge increase and the politicians scale it back.

Mark Magyar has a comprehensive article at NJSpotLight highlighting the “need” for the $1 billion revenue increase that Port Authority is requesting.

Governors Christie and Cuomo have established themselves as credible reformers in reducing the size of state government.  The proposal is another opportunity for them to improve government services and implement lasting reforms in the process.

Christie should use this opportunity to reform a major cost driver on public capital projects; “prevailing wage.”

“Prevailing wage” requires wages paid to employees of contractors working on government projects in New Jersey to be paid at a “union rate” determined by the unions and the Department of Labor, even if the winning bidders of the contractors are not union shops.

Eliminating the “prevailing wage” clause in government contracts would save taxpayers billions of dollars on construction projects.  There is a huge over supply of labor available.  Wages on government contracts should be set my market forces, not by unions who are making political contributions.  

The savings associated with eliminating this practice would go well beyond the Port Authority projects.  It would extend to DOT projects and county and municipal projects.  The saving to toll payers, fare payers and property tax payers would be substantial.

Another area for savings is the largess of salaries paid to the political patrons who run the Port Authority.  Just as Christie has mandates that school superintendents shall not earn more than the Governor, employees of the Port Authority should not earn more than the governors of New York and New Jersey.

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