Publisher's Synopsis
Investing in our transportation infrastructure and supporting 10 billion passenger trips every year is essential to our mobility, our economic development, our air quality, our overall quality of life, our ability to create jobs, and our global competitiveness. The benefits of investing are clear. The fact is we are not investing enough. In 2009, a Federal Transit Administration report found that of the seven largest rail systems, including New Jersey Transit, and the systems represented by two of our witnesses today, SEPTA and MBTA, they had a $50 billion backlog in projects-$50 billion just to make sure that the systems were in reasonably good condition, not state-of-the-art but adequate. Investing in our transit systems is not a luxury. It is a necessity. It is a win-win-win that creates good, family wage jobs. It makes our infrastructure safer, more efficient, more reliable, and it keeps us competitive.
