Jersey tax to pump gas prices 23 cents:
Tax rises tomorrow from 49th to 6th-highest in U.S.
THE DAYS OF cheap gas in New Jersey are coming to an end.
A major increase in the gas tax in the Garden State will go into effect Tuesday, raising the tax from 14.5 cents per gallon to 37.5 cents.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie and the Democratic-controlled Legislature agreed to the hike because the state had run out of cash to pay for transportation projects.
The 23-cent jump is the first increase in New Jersey’s gas tax since 1988. It had the second lowest fuel tax in the nation after Alaska, but will now have the sixth-highest.
New Jersey’s cheap gas has long brought drivers pouring over state lines to fill up.
“You can save 20 to 40 cents (per gallon) by filling up there, and that adds up after a while,” said Richard Dworkin of Lower Makefield Township, Pa. “New Jersey has a lot to offer, but those low prices are the best draw for people like me.”
The out-of-state business at New Jersey gas stations has been an economic boon to business owners, especially during the summer tourist season.
As of Friday, the average price of regular gas in New Jersey was $2.04, compared with $2.38 in New York and $2.39 in Pennsylvania, according to AAA.
State lawmakers voted earlier this month for the tax increase to help pay for an eight-year, $16 billion transportation trust fund in a deal that also eliminates estate taxes and makes a small cut in sales taxes.
The transportation trust fund had expired three months earlier, and Christie ordered a halt to transportation projects. The governor had resisted raising any taxes, but finally gave in after money for improvements to mass transit, roads and bridges dried up.
The state’s troubled transportation infrastructure drew more attention after a fatal NJ Transit train crash in Hoboken last month.
“Obviously, it was great having one of the lowest gas taxes in the nation for all these years, but I always knew that someday we would have to pay the piper, and that day is Nov. 1,” said Bob Kippinger, of Manchester, N.J., as he filled his tank at a station in Jackson, though he said he would have preferred the increase to be phased in gradually.
New Jersey will still have lower gas taxes than New York or neighboring Pennsylvania, which both have rates among the highest in the nation. It’s unclear how much the tax hike will cut into New Jersey gas stations’ business from nonresidents.
Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline, CStore and Automotive Association, said motorists will still be able to save 13 cents a gallon by filling up in New Jersey instead of Pennsylvania, and 5 to 10 cents compared with New York.
“We’ve just resigned ourselves that it’s a bitter pill for us, but it could have been more,” he said. BROOKLYN tenants slapped a developer tied to the controversial Bedford Union Armory project with a lawsuit charging they’ve been left without hot water, cooking gas and heat for weeks.
Twenty-six residents at two adjacent buildings in Brownsville filed the suit Friday, asking a judge to order their landlord to fix the problems and impose fines.
“Many of the tenants in the building are seniors. Many have young kids. It’s not right for anyone to have to live without heat and hot water and cooking gas,” said lawyer Leigh Mangum of the Legal Aid Society.
Preservation Development Partners bought the buildings earlier this year. The company was co-founded by BFC Partners, the firm tapped to transform the Crown Heights armory into apartments, townhouses and a sports center.
Tenants say their cooking gas was shut off on Oct. 5. Many say they’ve had no heat or hot water at all since early October, while others have had it only a few hours a day.
New York Communities for Change, which has protested the armory project, organized tenants in the Brownsville buildings. City law requires landlords to provide heat beginning on Oct. 1 when the temperature falls below a certain level, and hot water 24 hours a day all year long.
A BFC spokesman said National Grid discovered an illegal plumbing hookup in the gas lines of the building that dated to the previous owner and shut down the building’s utility meters. The company installed a mobile boiler before the shutdown to supply heat and hot water and have given tenants hot plates, he said. They expect National Grid to restore full utilities soon.