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A Monmouth University Poll released today finds that 95 percent of New Jerseyans think it is important that we pay to maintain and improve our transportation system via the Transportation Trust Fund, and 72 percent were concerned about its pending insolvency. But a full 45 percent of those polled had no idea that the fund is going broke in the first place.

The Transportation Trust Fund has piled on so much debt over the years that most analysts predict it be insolvent as early as the middle of next year. At that point, the hundreds of millions the fund collects each year in tolls, taxes and fees would go solely to making debt payments.

“It’s no wonder people are concerned to learn that New Jersey’s transportation funding source has run dry,” NJPIRG program associate Rebecca Alper says in a statement. “Over 700 New Jersey bridges are in need of repair, our roads are at capacity with stand still traffic, and cuts to public transit will only add to these problems. Everyone, drivers and transit riders alike, will experience a drop in the quality and safety of their commute if [the fund] is not rescued and put on the right track.”

Not surprisingly, the poll finds that folks are split on raising transportation user fees like tolls, vehicle
registration fees and the gas tax to pay for “road, bridge and transit projects.” Forty-nine percent would support this, while 47 would oppose it.

The Monmouth poll makes clear that New Jerseyans say want to protect and fund the Transportation Trust Fund. But we wish the pollsters would have asked more details about exactly how folks hope to do so, by breaking out different solutions (ie, gas tax vs. tolls) instead of lumping them altogether in one question, and also by specifically addressing mass transit fare hikes and service cuts in the poll. Regardless, these are interesting findings that — at the very least — could kickstart a renewed conversation in Trenton and throughout the state about how to solve this problem.

“The disintegration of our transportation funding system in New Jersey will have widespread impacts on our economy, how we develop and redevelop our state and how goods and people get around,” says Peter Kasabach, executive director of New Jersey Future. “The people of New Jersey know this, they are concerned, and they deserve answers.”

You can read the poll summary and full results here.