This document is the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program for the State of New Jersey for federal fiscal years 2008 (beginning October 1, 2007) through 2011.

The Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) serves two purposes. First, it presents a comprehensive, one-volume guide to major transportation improvements planned in the State of New Jersey therefore providing a valuable reference for implementing agencies (such as the New Jersey Department of Transportation and the New Jersey Transit Corporation) and all those interested in transportation issues in this state. Second, it serves as the reference document required under federal regulations (23 CFR 450.216) for use by the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration in approving the expenditure of federal funds for transportation projects in New Jersey.

Federal legislation requires that each state develop one multimodal STIP for all areas of the state. In New Jersey, the STIP consists of a listing of statewide line items and programs, as well as the regional Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) projects, all of which were developed by the three Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). The TIPs contain local and state highway projects, statewide line items and programs, as well as public transit projects.

This STIP conforms to-and in many cases exceeds-the specific requirements of the federal regulations:

1. It lists the priority projects programmed for the first four years of the planning period.

2. It is fiscally constrained for the first four years. A detailed discussion of fiscal constraint issues is found in subsection "k" below.

3. It contains all regionally significant projects regardless of funding source.

4. It contains all projects programmed for federal funds.

5. It contains, for information, state-funded projects.

6. It contains expanded descriptive information-considerably more than required by the federal regulations-as described in subsection "m" below.