Pothole Proliferation

If you drive around the New York Metro region, the bone jarring hits your car and person are absorbing should not come as a mystery. It's a direct result of shortchanging the transportation funds needed to maintain existing roads and mismanagement and misbegotten priorities.

New Jersey's transportation trust fund is in dire shape. Connecticut and New York are just as bad, and the states routinely raid the transportation funds to pay for other pet projects rather than upkeep.

That means that the states have accumulated a backlog of decrepit roads that will take years to bring back to passable standards.

Then, there's the Port Authority, which has raised tolls and PATH fares, all while the pace of construction at Ground Zero moves forward at a glacial pace and several of its bridges (primarily the Goethals and Outerbridge) are in need of replacement because they are obsolete. Instead of saving that money to be used for the infrastructure improvements, it's doubled the number of people on its payroll who make six figures. There's nothing quite like giving raises for incompetence and dithering.

Those who might defend the Port Authority will be quick to mention that they've spent billions to upgrade area airports, built the AirTrains at Newark and JFK, and maintain existing bridges and tunnels, but they also happen to oversee obsolete infrastructure that needs serious attention.

Throw in politicians who love to cut ribbons on new projects, rather than the routine maintenance and upgrade of existing structures, and you have perverse incentives to build new items without worrying about payment for existing infrastructure.

And if you think that the porkfest will help deal with improving the situation, you'd be mistaken. It will barely make a dent in the backlog and there's no money next year to cover spending on transportation in states like New York and New Jersey that face massive budget deficits. Priorities are all askew, and we're all paying the price.