I was saddened to learn of the death of former New Jersey Governor Jim Florio at the age of 85 (see obituary here). Much is made in the obituaries of the major tax increase he engineered at a time of fiscal crisis in the 1980s, which in turn caused a major public backlash (foreshadowing the Tea Party backlash of a couple of decades later). Florio’s move was seen as bold, or reckless, or both at the time. There was a magazine cover (which I can’t locate) depicting a cartoon Florio bungee jumping off a bridge with a broken bungee cord! What is easy to miss, at this distance, is the size of the fiscal problem he faced. The Wall Street crash of 1987 had a devastating effect on New Jersey. In the boom times before the crash those of us in the transportation world (I was at the New Jersey Department of Transportation) were trying to develop new planning tools to cope with runaway suburban sprawl. And we had the resources to do a lot. After the crash we still generated progressive policies, but there was a general belt tightening. Jim Florio was an innovative, activist sort of politician, who wanted to do big things. The hand he was dealt, unfortunately, was the need to cope with what amounted to a severe, localized economic recession.
But I remember Jim Florio best from his later years, when I would run into him at various conferences and meetings and have casual conversations with him. He was always kind, always well informed and involved, and always curious about the latest developments in transportation, land use, and environmental protection.
We will miss him.
