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Chris Wysocki
Caldwell, NJ

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Monday, 13 October 2014

Why is NJ road construction more costly than anywhere else? Uh, "utilities"

It costs $2 million dollars a mile to build roads in New Jersey. That's 8 times the national average, and almost 3 times more than Massachusetts, the next most costly state.

Why?

Uh, "utilities." Because no other state has those, or something.

The Reason Foundation says New Jersey spends just over $2 million per state-controlled mile on construction, maintenance and administration, triple the roughly $675,000 spent by the next-highest state, Massachusetts, and more than eight times the national average of $162,200. Its pavement conditions nevertheless rank poorly, too, with the state's only positive ranking being the nation's fifth-lowest fatality rate.

"It's just bad deals that have been made by politicians who get political donations from unions. Project labor agreements and prevailing wage artificially inflate the costs of road work," said Daryn Iwicki, state director for Americans for Prosperity. "New Jerseyans need answers as to why we do the things that we do here."

The reasons don't lie solely with the higher costs for union labor, said Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, the chief operating officer for Joseph M. Sanzari Inc., a major North Jersey general construction company. The state's dense population, high costs for acquiring land and the expenses for relocating utilities are major factors, he said.

"That doesn't happen in many states, in open areas. When you open up a road, there's so many more utilities," Sarlo said. "Digging on a street in Union City is a lot different than digging on a street out in Sussex County. Let's be honest with one another."

Honest? Only NJ has utilities? C'mon, that's so ridiculous a reason I feel dumber for having read it. There are "utilities" everywhere, even in Wyoming. Honest.

If we were being honest with one another we'd acknowledge the union stranglehold on even the smallest project.

Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen, says costs are pushed higher by requirements such as the state's prevailing wage law. That's been on the books for more than a century and sets standards, such as salaries, benefits and overtime, for public construction projects.

"What actually happens with prevailing wage is you get a number of work rules and other factors coming into the process which raise the cost," he said. "There are studies which have shown that those raise the cost about 40 percent. That's not a small amount of money, and that causes us to get less bang for our buck."

And, if we were being honest with one another we'd definitely mention the econut-inspired hoops all construction jobs have to jump through.

The Sierra Club sues every time somebody tries to fix up a doghouse. Their lawyers are first on the scene whenever a road is built, gumming up the works with inane injunctions on behalf of turtles, pigeons, or worms. Try to cut down a tree and they'll complain about the loss of termite habitat. Think about paving over part of a swamp and they're out there advocating for the mosquitoes.

All that litigation, and the paperwork required to overcome it, is what really drives up construction costs. For example, even after the state obtained all the necessary permits for raising the Bayonne Bridge, environmental activists sued to invalidate them.

Time is money, and nobody wastes our time quite like the econuts.

And of course, while they're standing around waiting for the latest set of redundant environmental studies to be approved, the all-union construction crew is earning top dollar day after non-productive day.

It's almost as if the unions and the environmentalists are in cahoots, along with the politicians they've bought and paid for, to drag out every project for as long as possible, because then everybody's fees can really ramp up. You really couldn't envision a more perfect confluence of corruption if you tried, and we all know that corruption and New Jersey are practically synonymous.

There, now we're being honest with one another.

Posted at 11:14 by Chris Wysocki [/nj_politics] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: transportation-trust-fund construction roads highways NJ-Politics | Tweet

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