The cynical argument is that Christie pulled out of ARC to win points with conservative voters ahead of a presidential run. That is probably where I land. Howev

The cynical argument is that Christie pulled out of ARC to win points with conservative voters ahead of a presidential run. That is probably where I land. However, construction started in 2009 (when NJ budget was massively strained) and NJ's public pension underfunding was a growing and looming crisis. Christie was the first governor to start making large payments to the pension in an effort to catch up. It is possible that he made a "pragmatic" decision of something easy to cut in the moment given the shrinking revenue and ballooning obligations. In other words, he could kick the can down the road on ARC but pension was a requirement. https://new.mta.info/document/101141 https://new.mta.info/document/101141 It looks like the MCTMT tax is about $2 billion out of $9 billion of operating subsidies. It isn't clear to me whether that is levied on nonresident employees. The Metropolitan Mass Transportation Operating Assistance (MMTOA)is the biggest contributor to subsidy (which sounds like sales tax and a few others), along with the gas tax, property transfer, and a few others. All in all, I think it's fair to say that the NYS budget isn't meaningfully contributing to the MTA relative to other sources. Personally, I wish the federal government would do more to help with the NY/NJ dynamics. Be the go between, manage the conflicting interests. We can do so much better with harmonization of transit networks, and the region already gives so much to the rest of the country. But I also think voters in both states need to be more aware of the actual issues we have been talking about here. There seems to be so little understanding of how things work and why things are the way they are. Maybe informed voters could tip the scales enough for NY/NJ politicians to play better together, or at least talk to these real issues.