This won’t come as news to many NJ drivers, but NJ101.5 reported that a study by Copilot determined that 42.4 of NJ’s roads are in poor condition.  Only RI and CA were worse.  The national average was 26%.

As detailed in SPCNJ’s report “Beware the Downward Spiral: The Economic Consequences of New Jersey’s Special-Interest-Dominated Status Quo,” many other studies have ranked NJ’s infrastructure as one of the worst in the nation.  So Copilot is just reaffirming what we already know from experience and published research.

The bottom line is that fixing infrastructure requires money, and with the state budget perpetually in deficit, the money is never there.  Despite our very high taxes, the revenues are never enough for our special-interest-dominated status quo. So infrastructure is short-changed.  And the situation will only get worse with COVID and our unsustainable pension and retiree healthcare costs eating into the budget.

Our special-interest-dominated status quo is making NJ a hard place to live.