NY-NJ Port Authority’s billion-dollar projects could lead to conflict or cooperation

24 Jan 2011 - PTI Multimedia

By Chris Megerian and Steve Strunsky / The Star-Ledger

In his rookie year in office, Gov. Chris Christie has treated the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as if he were governor of both states.

He unilaterally canceled a trans-Hudson rail tunnel project to avoid cost overruns and threatened to withhold support for World Trade Center development if he didn’t get money to raise the Bayonne Bridge.

Then he swatted away a proposal to use Port Authority funds to repair the Tappan Zee Bridge — a month before claiming $1.8 billion of the agency’s money for road projects in New Jersey such as renovating the Pulaski Skyway.

But now he isn’t the region’s only rising political star.

When Christie peers across the Hudson River today, he’s no longer facing off with lame-duck Gov. David Paterson but newly inaugurated Gov. Andrew Cuomo, hot off a landslide election win.

Although the Port Authority was created to foster interstate cooperation, at times it has been a fault line between New York and New Jersey. The two governors share control over the bistate transportation agency, and everyone will be watching closely to see how Christie and Cuomo balance billions of dollars in development money between them.

“They’re two very strong-willed personalities,” said Dan Sullivan, chairman of the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority. “It’ll be enormously interesting.”

As two of the country’s most high-profile governors, there will be endless opportunities for cooperation and conflict. In the past, New York and New Jersey have battled over garbage disposal, commuter taxes and the infamous needles that washed up on the Jersey Shore. But the Port Authority is the grand stage where the two states spar or collaborate.

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