FY 2005 - 2007 Statewide
Transportation Improvement Program

Introduction

The Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) serves two purposes. First, it presents a comprehensive, one-volume guide to major transportation improvements planned in the state of New Jersey therefore providing a valuable reference for implementing agencies (such as the New Jersey Department of Transportation and the New Jersey Transit Corporation) and all those interested in transportation issues in this state. Second, it serves as the reference document required under federal regulations (23 CFR 450.216) for use by the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration in approving the expenditure of federal funds for transportation projects in New Jersey.

This STIP conforms to—and in many cases exceeds—the specific requirements of the federal regulations:

1. It lists the priority projects programmed for the first three years of the planning period.
2. It is fiscally constrained. A detailed discussion of fiscal constraint issues is found in subsection “j” below.
3. It contains all regionally significant projects regardless of funding source.
4. It contains all regionally significant projects regardless of funding source.
5. It contains all projects programmed for federal funds.
6. t contains expanded descriptive information—considerably more than required by the federal regulations—as described in subsection “l" below.

Each MPO has a public participation process for their Transportation Plan, TIP and conformity determination. The State made copies of the STIP available for each MPO public meeting and representatives from the NJDOT and NJ TRANSIT will be present to answer questions and concerns raised by the public on our program. The public comment period for each MPO TIP and the STIP will run for a period of 30 days.

c. Statewide Transportation Plan
The Federal Statewide Planning Rule requires that the STIP contain projects consistent with the statewide long-range transportation plan. New Jersey’s statewide plan was prepared and submitted to the state legislature on March 1, 2001.

Unlike the previous plan, Transportation Choices 2025 is more than a “policy plan.” It identifies future transportation needs and offers strategic direction on a systems level that is based on technical analysis, the use of alternative scenarios evaluation, and extensive public involvement. The Plan contains 5-, 10-, and 25-year elements to help guide the investment agenda for the state’s future transportation expenditures.

The process to develop Transportation Choices 2025 went far beyond typical planning efforts, incorporating website technology in concert with traditional methods in plan preparation, public involvement, and overall project management. Using state-of-the-art technology, the New Jersey Long Range Transportation Plan offers valuable transportation information and is designed to encourage the exchange of information between users of the state's transportation system and the Department. This will become an important component of the "Living Plan" effort for public involvement.

A consulting firm has been selected to complete several tasks over an eighteen-month period that will update and enhance some of the information contained in the Transportation Choices 2025 Long Range Transportation Plan issued in March 2001 and will be part of the material developed to prepare the next Long Range Plan to be issued in 2006. Improvements are being made to the New Jersey Long Range Transportation Plan so it can be an easily accessible source of information on the development of the Long Range Plan and as well as a way for the public to offer their input on the Long Range Plan to the Department over time.

d. Conformity for MPO plans and programs
Each MPO Regional Transportation Plan will go through a conformity analysis to demonstrate that each MPO Plan conforms to the State Implementation Plan (SIP). Each MPO TIP must be consistent with their conforming plan such that the regional emission analysis performed on the plan applies to their TIP. This determination means that the implementation of projects and programs in the MPO TIPs will have a positive impact in the aggregate on air quality. Since the STIP contains the three MPO TIPs without modification, the implementation of the STIP, in aggregate, will also have a positive impact on air quality.

e. Advance construction projects
Advance Construction (AC) is a procedure to advance a federally funded project(s) into the current fiscal year and implement it without federal funds. Use of AC is subject to the availability of non-federal funds (e.g., state funds) in the year in which the project is to be implemented, and the availability of federal funds in the year in which the AC project(s) is to be converted to a regular federal-aid project. AC projects are to be listed individually in the TIP and STIP in both the year that the project is to be implemented and the year in which the conversion is to take place. Appropriate notification will be provided in the TIPs and STIP so it is clearly understood that these “other funds” are available and that future federal funds may be committed to these AC projects. Fiscal constraint must be maintained throughout this process for both the implementing and conversion years.

When AC is used in the development of the TIP/STIP, or to amend or modify the TIP/STIP, the MPO and the State will follow the public participation procedures adopted by the MPO. The MPO and the State agree that in the development and processing of the TIP/STIP, the inclusion of an AC project in the TIP/STIP in the year the project is to be implemented signifies that the project can be converted to federal funding when federal funds become available and the decision is made to convert to those funds.

f. Multi-Year Funding
Multi-year funding is a process whereby the costs of a phase of work of a project are spread out over several STIP years. Each fiscal year of the STIP will show the available federal funding needed that year to complete a portion of a particular phase of work. In the first fiscal year of funding for a multi-year funded phase of work, the Department will only seek federal authorization for that portion of the federal funds shown in that fiscal year in the STIP. The remaining balance of funds for that particular phase of work will appear in the STIP in the fiscal year the Department intends to request Federal authorization for the remaining funds needed for continuation/completion of the phase/project. Each multi-year federal funded project will be submitted to FHWA with the condition that authorization to proceed is not a commitment or obligation to provide federal funds for that portion of the undertaking not fully funded herein. Fiscal constraint will be maintained at all times throughout this process.

In the event that federal funding is not available in any fiscal year, for a multi-year funded phase of work, the Department will take full responsibility to fund that portion of the phase of work, as stated under the provisions of Section 13 of P.L. 1995, c.108. It will also be the Department’s responsibility to fund any portion of a multi-year funded phase of work that goes beyond the life of the current federal highway act.

Table 9 shows current fiscal year and future fiscal year funding needed to complete multi-year funded highway projects. The individual project STIP pages contain specific information for these projects such as a detailed project description, project funding source and a total estimated project cost.

g. Development of the STIP
This Statewide Transportation Improvement Program is the product of months of staff work and deliberations involving the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), the New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJ TRANSIT), county and municipal transportation planners and engineers, other transportation implementing agencies, the public and elected officials at the state, county, and municipal levels. The main decision-making forums for selecting projects for this program were the state’s three metropolitan planning organizations:

• The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA), covering Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union, and Warren counties.
  
  
• The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), covering Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer counties.
  
  
• The South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization (SJTPO), covering Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Salem counties.

The process of building the current STIP began in the fall of 2003, with intensive staff work by NJDOT, NJ TRANSIT, and the MPOs.

All projects that were identified as potential candidates for inclusion in the regional transportation improvement programs of each of the three MPOs were subjected to intensive screening to verify project scope, status, schedule, and cost. The resulting “pool” of projects was analyzed independently by NJDOT, NJ TRANSIT, and the MPOs to assign each project a priority based on the extent to which it would advance identified regional and statewide objectives, such as objectives set forth in the state and regional long-range transportation plans, the New Jersey Capital Investment Strategy, air quality objectives, and the broad social and economic goals of the State Development and Redevelopment Plan. NJDOT developed and circulated revenue projections for planning purposes to each of the MPOs, based on the best current assessment of available state, federal, and other funds. NJDOT, NJ TRANSIT and each of the three MPOs entered into intensive discussions to negotiate a list of deliverable transportation projects that best fit the composite statewide and regional priorities within a financially constrained program. These negotiated project lists were used as the basis for publishing the Proposed Fiscal Year 2005 Transportation Capital Program by NJDOT on March 31, 2004, and for preparing TIPs for further analysis by each of the MPOs.

h. Congestion Management System
All projects in this STIP result from a fully operational Congestion Management System (CMS) in place at each MPO.

i. STIP Modifications and Amendments
The STIP may be modified or amended at anytime according to the procedures set forth in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for TIP/STIP changes between the three MPOs, NJ TRANSIT, and the NJDOT. These MOUs were fully executed in November of 1999. STIP changes, once approved by the MPOs in concert with either NJ TRANSIT or the NJDOT, are forwarded to the FHWA and/or FTA for their approval, when necessary.

j. Projected revenues
Federal law and regulations require that the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) be fiscally constrained for the first three years. Specifically, “planned federal aid expenditures” cannot exceed “projected revenues.” The major sources of funding identified in this document are the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund.

NJDOT has developed an estimate of $6.4 billion in available state and federal revenues to support the state’s transportation budget during the three fiscal years from FY 2005 through FY 2007. (For planning purposes, state revenues are estimated on the basis of state fiscal years, which begin on July 1, and federal revenues are estimated on the basis of federal fiscal years, which begin on October 1.) This amount constitutes the funding expected to be available to support the whole FY 2005-FY 2007 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program.

Tables 1 through 3 set out these amounts by year and by funding category and compare them to the actual amounts programmed in the TIPs and STIP. Following are the revenue assumptions used in developing this table:

1. Dollar amounts shown in federal funding categories are based, except as otherwise noted below, on the current federal-aid apportionment tables or equivalent data obtained from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as appropriate. It should be noted that the apportionment tables are greater than the obligation authority that will ultimately be provided. At the moment, the Transportation Trust Fund does not have funds to allocate to projects in FY 2007. All remaining funds will be needed to pay debt service. Additional dedicated revenue will need to be identified before projects can be funded through the Transportation Trust Fund.
2. Funds in the Surface Transportation Program (STP) category are broken down into the allocations and minimums required by federal law.
   
3. “High Priority” funds (and some remaining “demo” funds) are shown only as authorized by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) or some other federal act.
   
4. The New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund provides $1.3 billion in FY 2005 to support the Capital Program. For programming purposes, it is assumed that NJDOT’s share of the Transportation Trust Fund is $686 million for FY2005, $671 million in FY 2006 and $0 in FY 2007. NJ TRANSIT’s share of the Transportation Trust Fund is $607 million in FY 2005, $534 million in FY 2006 and $0 in FY 2007.
   
5. In FY 2005, $75 million of FHWA CMAQ funding is to be “flexed” to NJ TRANSIT; also $75 million is projected to be “flexed” in FY 2006 and FY 2007.

With two notable exceptions, federal and state funds are not “allocated” to—that is, required to be spent within the boundaries of—the state’s three MPOs. The first exception is STP funds, some of which are required under a formula in federal regulations to be allocated to MPOs. These allocated funds are shown in the following tables as “STP-NJTPA,” “STP-DVRPC,” and “STP-SJTPO.” The second exception is Trust Fund state aid funds, which are allocated on a county-by-county basis under a statutory and regulatory formula.

The actual budgeting of federal and state funds for projects within the MPO areas is a product of the development of the three regional transportation improvement programs, the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, and legislative approval of the annual capital program. On a statewide basis, the cost of projects programmed for a particular fiscal year must equal the planned resources for that year. Each project must also be assigned to a funding category that is appropriate for the project and within which adequate funding is available. From year to year there may be significant variations in the amount of funds actually programmed within an MPO area, as needs and specific project implementation schedules dictate. These programming decisions are made on a cooperative basis with the participation of NJDOT, NJ TRANSIT, local government representatives, and other agencies (all of whom are members of the MPOs), the State Legislature, citizens’ groups, and the general public.

For the purpose of defining a project line item estimate in the STIP, each item includes an estimate of independent contractor costs to produce the project, an estimate of implementing agency costs anticipated in support of the development and delivery of the project, and any other payments to third parties in matters of right-of-way and utility relocations.

Table 4 shows the overall distribution of funds within the STIP by MPO.

Tables 5 through 8 provide more detailed breakdowns of expenditures by funding category for each of the three MPOs and for statewide programs.

k. Financing transition projects
“Transition” projects are projects which are programmed for implementation in the current (FY 2004-06) TIP/STIP but which, for either scheduling or obligation authority limitation reasons, are not actually available for implementation until after October 1, 2004, when the planned (FY 2005-07) TIP/STIP takes effect. To provide a smooth transition between one TIP/STIP period and the next, New Jersey’s MPOs and appropriate state and federal agencies have agreed that the first 60 days after approval of the FY 2005-07 STIP will be considered a transition period, in which projects included in the FY 2004-06 STIP will be considered eligible for federal funding actions, even though they are not included in the FY 2005-07 STIP. This list of “Transition” projects is found in Section V of this document and is based on current schedule information.

l. How to use this document
The individual one-page descriptions, found in Sections III and IV, provide detailed information for each project or program in the five-year plan. The top portion of each page lists the project/program name (route and section) as well as the location. The NJDOT reference number is assigned at the beginning of a project and remains with that project until its completion. The TIP reference number refers to the identification number assigned by the MPO(s). Other information contained within the one-page description includes county, municipality, Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) jurisdiction, mileposts (for state highway projects), structure number (for bridge projects), the project sponsor, a detailed description of the project, and program category. An explanation of the program categories can be found in the Glossary, located in Section VI of this document.

The columns at the bottom of each record indicate the anticipated funding schedule for each project/program. The phases of work and types of funds are further defined in the Glossary located in Section VI.