Amtrak to Christie: Drop dead!

Image by JonathanCohen via Flickr

The debate over the Hudson River rail tunnels suddenly lost focus Friday.

A day after the editors welcomed Governor Christie with open legs and almost all of Page 1 to stake out his positions on education, transportation and other issues, federal officials told the Republican bully to drop dead.


The Record of Woodland Park tried to minimize the story's impact today, but a one-column head below a tabloid story on a Peeping Tom couldn't hide the terrible news: 

Amtrak slammed the door shut on salvaging the Hudson River Rail Tunnels to Nowhere -- meaning cash-starved New Jersey may get stuck with a bill that approaches $1 billion. (NJ Transit already spent $595 million on the project, and the feds want $271 million of their money repaid, plus interest and penalties.)

Christie double-speak

Amtrak's decision "late on Thursday" apparently caught Editor Francis Scandale and his hand-picked transportation reporter, Karen Rouse, off-guard. There certainly was no hint of it in Thursday's lavish coverage of Christie, who was quoted as saying the Amtrak talks were active.


NJ Transit can still salvage the project if it extends electrified light-rail service from the base of the Palisades into Manhattan. The use of light rail may also reduce costs, but I haven't seen anything about that possibility in The Record.


Look at the rest of Scandale's pathetic front page today. 

He must really be losing it in his pursuit of readers if he resorted to this ridiculous story about a hidden restroom camera that caught a man urinating. And the patch -- about improving science education -- what's that doing on A-1? 


Look at the headline -- right next to the Amtrak-NJ Transit rail-tunnels story. Why didn't the news copy desk avoid the cliched "on right track" here?

Lessons shaped to get 

students on right track

Let's see what head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes did with the Local section, her pride and joy.

L-1 has a large photo of a non-fatal accident today -- one of Sykes' favorite ways of filling all the space that her lazy minions can't fill.

What red light?

At the bottom of the page, Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski seems to be siding with drivers who blow through red lights -- endangering all of us -- with what is at least his second screed against red-light cameras. 

"Limp Chick," as he is known around the office, also has virtually ignored the commuting problems of mass-transit users, because he is in the pockets of the car dealers who advertise so heavily in the former Hackensack daily.

Staff Writer Joseph Ax reports on L-6 that "mechanical failure" has been ruled out in the fatal crash of Teaneck Police Officer John Abraham early Oct. 25, though he makes no reference to the safety problems of the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

Also on L-6 are a photo and brief on two more elderly driver accidents, which Sykes and Cichowski are doing their best to ignore. 

They should have launched a project on the driving challenges facing seniors and the help available to them long ago, but they'd rather grow warts on their asses from the hours they spend in front of their computers. 

$200 for mystery meat

I simply don't understand how Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung can blow more than $200 on dinner for two and come away with so little knowledge of the food she ate and so much contempt for the reader. 

Her three-star Better Living review of The Park Steakhouse in Park Ridge is a celebration of gluttony with no details on the quality of the meat served. And she says the restaurant serves Chilean sea bass, but doesn't tell you it is an over-fished species that is high in mercury.

Don't readers deserve to know if the $41 sirloin they order comes from an animal that is raised naturally on grass or one that was confined to a feedlot, pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones, and fed animal byproducts (bits of dead animals)?


Instead, Ung quotes the menu, telling readers it's "an exceptional cut of meat." Her opinion? "It  was quite good." And she loved the four desserts she stuffed down her gullet on two visits, including a $14 souffle.


There are no local restaurant health ratings in the paper today, but you will find wire-service stories on wine and bourbon