The Squeeze is on for New Jersey commuters who are facing proposed Fair hikes on New Jersey transits rails and buses a toll increase on the turnpike and Parkway and depending on who you ask a much maligned congestion surcharge for drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street it all adds up to more money out of your pocket but transportation officials say there's little other choice budgets are strapped and infrastructure improvements are adding up fast commuter Advocates have long called on the state to find a dedicated source of Revenue to help pay for it all after this latest round of proposed increases they've got a new idea on how the state could fund the projects senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports so we've invited the governor to ride buses with us and to actually see what's going on um on the ground Talia Schwarz takes the crowded number nine bus in Jersey City and says NJ Transit claims it can't afford to increase service Beyond oneck bus per hour now the agency's proposing a 15% Fair hike with an additional 3% increase every year afterwards Governor Murphy says that's fair Talia says it's not for low and middle income writers so I think that there is an overall disregard uh for uh this this type of equity issue and he's not focused on it uh as we we hoped he would be when he promised uh to fix New Jersey Transit the governor famously said uh that he would fix NJ Transit if it killed him he should be six feet under by now Empower nj's John reichman says the agency's Deep fiscal deficits about 110 million next year and a staggering 760 million in 2026 can't be fixed by raising fairs like several Advocates he thinks the governor should cancel a controversial $10.7 billion Turnpike widening project and reroute that money it could basically put NJ Transit on a sound fiscal footing it could prevent the fiscal cliff uh it could Finance so many needed um infrastructure projects for public transportation ngj Transit says it's installed a safe braking system on trains hired more engineers and bus drivers and it's buying more rail cars and buses but unlike other mass transit systems it lacks a dedicated funding source so it depends on Riders to pay more the problem a huge population especially when we talking about bus our Riders salaries are not increasing 3% every year and so we're going to ask people to pay a little bit more every single year for in many cases declining service NJ Transit can count on getting close to a half billion dollars annually from the turnpike but it's also raising tolls 3% a year Governor Murphy blocked that toll whole hike right before the November elections but recently said he'd sign it noting by responsibly investing in the maintenance of our state's highways and mass transit were continuing to prioritize the safety and mobility of all New Jersey residents and commuters there's bipartisan push back the Democratic party should not be pushing forward regressive taxes uh that affect workingclass families this is not time for a toll increase but now after the election over you see the toll increase go through Republicans like Senator Anthony buo call it politics he wants to see justification for NJ transit's Fair hikes too less people will ride which will reduce the revenues even further and it'll just spiral out of control so you know there really needs to be an overall fix Buco won't speculate on where to find a billion dollars to save NJ Transit suggestions include raising New Jersey sales tax ta are adding another search charge to the corporate business tax Senator Vin gal says a corporate tax hike should be on the table that business can afford it that should be where we're looking and it's not going to affect the bottom line of any of these folks by the way Jersey Transportation trust fund expires in June so you can add that to lawmakers to-do list I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight News NJ Spotlight News