‘A big freaking deal': Infrastructure law has over $12B for NJ
TRENTON – The trillion-dollar infrastructure bill signed into law Monday by President Joe Biden guarantees more than $12.6 billion in transportation funding to New Jersey.
In a news conference at the Bloomfield train station, a century-old facility that’s in need of upgrades now likely to be funded, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said it’s a historic law and that each project funded will mean jobs.
“The American people have been waiting for decades of this kind of large-scale investment in the 21st century infrastructure, and we’re here to say it is finally happening,” Menendez said.
In addition to the formula aid are multiple pools of funding that can support the Gateway Project rail tunnels to New York. The law also provides money to support electric vehicles, replace lead water pipes and expand broadband.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said there has been “no infrastructure bill in our lifetime” as impactful as this one, which he called “a big freaking deal.”
“We are bringing billions and billions of dollars to our state to affect everything the eye can see,” Booker said.
The law will provide more than $12.6 billion in state formula funds for highway, bridge and transit investment in New Jersey over the next five years, including $4.5 billion between 2022 and 2026 for NJ Transit infrastructure.
Kevin Corbett, president and chief executive officer of NJ Transit, said the law ends the “transit Hunger Games” in which agencies are fighting for every dollar and constantly triaging.
“Now with this money, we are going to be able to really implement and bring us into a first-class system that we could be, equal to any in the world,” Corbett said.
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