BY REBECCA SHEEHAN
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Serving the state of New Jersey for five terms, accumulating nearly three decades of dedication, one could say that the late Senator Frank Lautenberg put his blood, sweat and tears into helping out the Garden State.  And with a new face sitting in Lautenberg’s senate seat, many are saying that we just won’t have the influence and pull that we used to have – especially when dealing with federal transportation funding.

"Regardless of how talented the new person will be, they simply won't have the seniority to be in the room,” noted Rider University political science professor Ben Dworkin, who believes the loss of Lautenberg will have a huge impact on the state’s political clout, “and having the influence that the state needs when big pots of money are being divided up.”

During his 30 years, Lautenberg was a huge activist for transit projects and held key transportation-related positions in the Senate since being elected in 1982, and shaped national transit policy. Such as with the original Intermodal Surface Transportation Equity Act of 1991, nicknamed "Ice Tea," which encouraged integration in highway and transit planning — but also to steer federal transit and infrastructure funds to his home state.

“I’d say over the last generation, I can’t think of anybody in Washington, D.C., who did more for transit riders in America,” said Thomas K. Wright, executive director of the Regional Plan Association, a Manhattan-based transportation planning institute in an NJ.com article. “He was always passionate. It’s a very sad day for transit, for transportation in general.”

Back in 2007, he helped craft legislation to save Amtrak (and later on a train station was named in his honor – Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Junction Train Station), as well as to boost rail safety in 2008, and to succeed ISTEA with the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act in 2009. Lautenberg was also doing whatever he could to safely protect the state’s roadways, and in 2000 he instituted the law lowering the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers to .08.

Bud Wright, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, called him, “a true leader in transportation. Sen. Lautenberg helped to pass landmark transportation legislation throughout his career to improve the health and safety of the traveling public,” Wright stated to NJ.com. “His tireless work on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation; and Environment and Public Works committees will be missed.”