The NJTPA Board of Trustees honored outgoing Chair John W. Bartlett, a Passaic County Commissioner who led the Board for two years, during its January 8 reorganization meeting. Commissioner Bartlett joined the Board in 2012 and had served on the Executive Committee since 2018.
“We thank you for your dedicated service to the people of our region and for your tireless advocacy for the importance of transportation,” said Ocean County Commissioner John P. Kelly, who was elected chair at the meeting, as he presented Bartlett with a plaque.
Bartlett will continue to represent Passaic County on the 20-member Board. During his tenure as Chair, the Board achieved many things, including: completion of the region’s first-ever active transportation plan, adoption of a new $14 billion Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) – the largest ever, and the doubling of funds for the NJTPA’s Local Safety Program.
Locally in Passaic County, Chair Bartlett was instrumental in working to secure $15 million in federal funding for the Main Avenue Bus Terminal in Passaic and the launch of Passaic County Strategic Infrastructure Investment Study, which recently got underway.
"I think for me, what’s been the most personally rewarding is watching all the ways in which ‘TPA staff support our local partners, support the counties that are part of ‘TPA,” Bartlett said. “So much of what has grown and thrived at ‘TPA over these last couple years has been that local aid and the technical support so that towns that may not have contemplated filing an application now can access some of the federal funding that enables them to do projects that are hyperlocal and super important.”
He noted that while the Board is comprised of elected officials from both political parties, it has always operated in a non-partisan fashion, which has allowed it to accomplish so much.
“We work together with the interest of the region in mind, and we support one another when it comes to those local projects that each of us want that each of us wants to show our own constituents,” Bartlett said. "The fact that this collective from Ocean County to the New York border is working together to make that happen for all of us, really, I think it’s an example for how to govern."