Patience is a Virtue—Unless You’re Spending D.O.T. Money

In an effort to prioritize progress over bureaucratic malfeisence, New Jersey lawmakers have advanced legislation that would afford airports additional time to apply state funds to much-needed improvements.

Currently, airports are obligated to utilize Department of Transportation grants within two years of receiving them. In most cases, however, the interval expires before airport improvement projects are granted requisite local approval or finalize engineering work—especially if community opposition slows the process.

Complications and delays notwithstanding, the DOT grants expire after two years.

“I have personal experience in how long it takes to get local municipal approval,” said Suzanne Nagle, co-owner of Solberg Airport in Hunterdon County, NJ.

“It costs tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, plus other experts that are not covered under the grant. It’s a very tedious process, and limiting it to two years pretty much negates the grant. It’s almost impossible to do it in two years.”

The Department of Transportation allocates approximately $4-million a year to New Jersey’s forty public-use airports and one seaplane base. The sum is woefully short of the $20-million annual investment Garden State airports require to improve safety. It’s also significantly lower than the $466 million in airport improvements New Jersey airports will need over the next two decades—according to a recent study.

Peter Weidhorn, owner of Eagle’s Nest Airport in Ocean County, NJ, asserts, “The New Jersey airport system is in critical need of significant infrastructure, redevelopment, and obstruction elimination to ensure the continued economic growth that benefits the state through tax dollars, high-value employment opportunities, and industry that relies on air transportation to move personnel and freight,” Weidhorn added, “Runways, like highways, wear out, and it costs millions to resurface the runway. Private airport owners, counties, or townships don’t have the funds to maintain safe infrastructure.”

Aviation advocates have urged lawmakers to designate the state Department of Transportation the sole authority authorized to approve airport safety improvements—thereby precluding self-serving objections by municipalities, real-estate developers, and local property owners.

“Local objections certainly should be taken into consideration and dealt with accordingly,” states William Leavens, a pilot and board vice president of the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Coalition, “but personal objections by a small and vocal group of people should not be veto power over investments in public safety.”

FMI: https://njleg.state.nj.us