{"id":26018,"date":"2026-02-17T07:35:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=26018"},"modified":"2026-02-17T16:13:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:13:19","slug":"brick-council-adopts-resolution-opposing-increase-to-n-j-s-gas-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2026\/02\/brick-council-adopts-resolution-opposing-increase-to-n-j-s-gas-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Council Adopts Resolution Opposing Increase to N.J.’s Gas Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gas<\/a>

Gas station pump. (Credit: Robert Geiger\/ Flickr\/ Creative Commons)<\/p><\/div>\n

New Jersey residents are a month into the state\u2019s latest gas tax hike, prompting the Brick Township council to adopt a resolution in opposition since they believe local residents would be unduly affected by an increase.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 1, 2026, New Jersey\u2019s motor fuels tax rose by 4.2 cents per gallon, bringing the total rate to 49.1 cents per gallon \u2013 the sixth-highest in America. The adjustment, which arose with a vote, was mandated by a 2024 law signed by former Gov. Chris Christie to fund the Transportation Trust Fund with automatic increases when the fund is not sufficiently flush with cash. The total state tax for diesel fuel is now 56.1 cents per gallon.<\/p>\n

Brick Township\u2019s council unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the increase or future increases, stating that with a lack of public transportation options, coupled with the state\u2019s refusal to improve highways such as Route 9 and Route 88 despite a voluminous increase in population, residents are forced to use more fuel simply to travel to work. With the lack of commuter trains, light rail or other transportation options, taxes on fuel disproportionately affect Ocean County residents, they said.<\/p>\n

While one former resident who spoke at the meeting opposed the resolution because, he said, it funds transportation projects, others countered that the funding itself often goes toward mass transit projects focused in the New York suburbs while the local area is ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody supports infrastructure improvements,\u201d said Township Attorney Kevin Starkey, who spoke on the logic behind the resolution. \u201cThat\u2019s not the issue. The issue is who bears the burden of that. The point of this is, because Brick has one of the highest population of commuters in the state because there aren\u2019t a lot of other alternatives \u2026 there\u2019s a disproportionate burden placed on residents here to fund transportation projects around the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution states an increased tax \u201cnegatively affects workforce participation, local hiring and regional economic activity if workers face growing financial barriers simply to reach their jobs.\u201d It went on to say the increased \u201cfail to account for the unique commuting patterns of Ocean County residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution passed unanimously and will be transmitted to the governor\u2019s office, state legislative leaders, the local legislative delegation and the state\u2019s 21 counties.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Jersey residents are a month into the state\u2019s latest gas tax hike, prompting the Brick Township council to adopt a resolution in opposition since they believe local residents would be unduly affected by an increase. On Jan. 1, 2026, New Jersey\u2019s motor fuels tax rose by 4.2 cents per gallon, bringing the total rate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,4484,2491,5560,942],"class_list":["post-26018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-featured","tag-gas-tax","tag-motor-fuel-tax","tag-new-jersey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/44595579195_bdf6a6ccb0_4k-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-6LE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26018"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26023,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26018\/revisions\/26023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}