1. The $40+ in toll costs along the Turnpike, I-95 and the GWB in New Jersey and New York City are paid if someone drives the entire length of the route between Delaware and New York City. So let's give New Jersey some credit here. New Jersey is always one of the worst states in the U.S. when it comes to Federal taxes paid compared to Federal expenditures in the state, and the state's elected officials have figured out a way to get some of that money back from people in other states.
2. People who live in New Jersey and commute to work in New York pay income taxes in New York, not New Jersey (technically they are taxed in both states, but they get a credit against their New Jersey taxes for the taxes they pay in New York, so they owe $0 to New Jersey). So these people use public resources in New Jersey, but don't actually pay very much for them. Tolls are one of the few public expenses that these residents actually pay.
3. Comparing the duration of a construction project in the 1930s to a project in 2014 is ridiculous. The biggest challenge with something like the I-287 project that the author mentions is that this was a major rehabilitation and upgrade of an existing roadway. This means that the project had to be done while the roadway was kept open for traffic -- which dictates specialized construction schedules and limits the duration of time when certain things can be done (try lowering beams into place on an overpass while traffic is moving underneath it, for example). I could shrink the 10-year construction timeline for the I-287 down to a year and a half, if you'd let me. But I would have to close one of the busiest stretches of highway in the NYC metropolitan area for 18 months.
Wow, you’re a great apologist for big government. You ought to get a job working for Obama.