Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1916-12-08
New Jersey State Road Problem
BY REESE p. RISLEY

for their neglect?
The fault lies with the whole system
of financing State roads. Like every
other business matter, this is largely a
question of dollars and cents.
You can't build roads aud maintain
them unless you have the money to
pay for them. Yet, this is just exactly
what New Jersey has been trying to do
for over a decade.
And, finally, The end has come in
the Egan law tangle, the shutting off
of the motor vehicle license fund for
road repairs, and, in short, the collapse
of the whole piece-meal plan of fnan-
cling the States highway system.
What New Jersey needs is not the
halfway measure which it has gotten
in the Egan law, but a broad, compre-
hensiye plan of State highway recon-
struction, financed 10 the extent of its
requirements, $15, 0O0, 900 or $18.O 00 900,
if necessary, as Colonel Stevens says
it is.
A State debt has always been the
jack-o-lantern that certain politicians
have used 10 brighten their constituents
and each other out of a reasonable So
luton of the States problems. ANY
man who proposes a State debt, which
means a State bond issue and the direct
State tax that goes with it, is dead po-
litically in New Jersey" is the way
they put it up in Trenton.
Yet, what are the facts? Are not
the people of New Jersey a long ways
ahead of those politicians who take
this view?
The Egan law created a State debt to
the amount of 81, OOO, 900, cared for, of
course, out of the motor vehicle license
fund, but, nevertheless, it was a State
debt.
And $500 New Jersey voters voted
for it Every county in the State, ex-
ceptipg only Cape May, approved of it.
And, if the Egan law had provided for
Cape May county's roads, the vote here
would have been overwhelmingly in
favor of the Act.
The voters of New Jersey are not so
afraid of a State debt and a direct State
tax TO pay for it, as some have believed,
and the most surprised people in the
State were many of those who are OPP
posed to a State debt, when the result
of the recent election was announced
and it was found the Egan law had
been approved of.
The people of New Jersey are neither
irrational nor unreasonable. They are
as capable of arguing out a proposition
for themselves as are the people of any
State in the Union. They have not
had their eyes shut to the changes in
road construction which have been
necessitated by the automobile. In
stead, they have approved of these
changes and have shown their appreci-
alton of the benefits conferred by buy
ing automobiles! No one would get a
hearing in New Jersey today, who adj
vocated abolishing automobiles
And, in my opini N, no n need
doubt the result of a popular election
on a State bond issue for a ''perma-
nent" highway system, carrying with
it a direct State tax necessary to pro-
vide for the requisite interest and sink
ing fund charges, PROVIDED, THE
PEOPLE OF NEW JERSEY HAVE
CONFIDENCE IN THE MEN AND
MEANS PROVIDED FOR CARRY
ING OUT THEGREAT WORK AND
DISBURSING THE FUNDS:
And that is not all. With a perma-
nent State highway system in sight,
New Jersey will insist on bridges across
the Delaware and Hudson to Philadel-
phia and New York.
Anticipated toll bridges and conges-
ted ferry service must go, if the Great
er New Jersey Highway System is as
sured.
Let the traffic bars which impede
the development of our State be swept
away!
Let the tide of travel between New
York, New England, the West and the
South flow, without hindrance or in
terruption, ceaselessly across our State,
Let it know no season mol condition
of weather.
Let it pass freely, lingering if it will,
opening up rills and ~rivulets of its own
To the many haautiful and historic To-
cations which our State possesses.
The Republican party is in control
of the States affairs-has it the cour
age to continue the work of highway
construction which it inaugurated a
dozen years ago?
What would former Governor Stokes,
former Governor Fort and former)
Governor Fielder think of this?