Story, photos on bus terminal woes arrive two years late

Only one of the people waiting for NJ Transit's 166 local at the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan last year chose to use the torture devices masquerading as seats, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's Page 1 photo of afternoon rush-hour commuters waiting for an NJ Transit bus to Harrington Park from Manhattan is a first.

The Record today finally publishes interviews with long-suffering North Jersey residents bitching about delays as they wait for overdue buses at the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal (A-1).

And it's a "terminal" -- the last stop for New Jersey buses -- not a "station," as the inaccurate front-page headline claims. 

Dull opening

For some reason, Staff Writer Christopher Maag leads with a West Milford man who obsessively notes the departure times of buses "on a small notepad using a scratchy blue pen" (A-1).

Buried deep in his report are these hard-hitting quotes from Amy Losack, a Teaneck resident describing conditions that have been evident to everyone but The Record for two years (A-6):

"We are treated like cattle! This just can't continue. It's a form of torture. I sit for eight hours a day, and I want to go home and go for a walk outside. But I can't.

"This is a pit! This is a horror show!"

And yet after reading thousands of words on A-1 and A-6, commuters don't learn exactly when Manhattan bus gridlock and afternoon delays at the antiquated terminal will ease.

Little local news

With nearly five pages of death notices, ads and school board candidates, Local today has barely any municipal news (L-1 to L-8).

Why is Maag's second story today -- on a horse race in the Meadowlands -- at the top of L-1????

Don't look for any North Jersey business news in Business today (B-1 to B-8).

Staff Writer Richard Newman was assigned to write about international aviation disasters, and a photo shows people at a job fair in North Carolina, not New Jersey (B-1).

Suds and duds

On the Better Living cover, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung uses her Sunday column, The Corner Table, to write about a Bergen County craft beer, not food (BL-1).

Unfortunately, one of the owners, Bob Olson, looks like he has been drinking up all the inventory (photos on BL-1 and BL-4).

On the Opinion front, Columnist Mike Kelly blames public employee unions for the wasteful duplication of municipal services and opposition to what he calls "coordination and streamlining" (O-1).

Still, the veteran reporter doesn't even know how many towns and cities there are in New Jersey (565). He says there are "more than 600" (O-1).

Another dud

That reminds me of another lame Record columnist, Road Warrior John Cichowski, whose work is riddled with errors, exaggerations and idiotic quotes from drivers and residents.

Here is a critique of Cichowski's Friday column from the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior continues to badly confuse his readers and himself based upon his mistaken follow-up about problems with crashes, fatalities and speed enforcement on Route 17 between Saddle River, Waldwick and Ho-Ho-kus.

"Road Warrior reported extensively that the safety of officers like Christopher Goodell, who was killed when his unmarked cruiser was rammed from behind by a tractor-trailer near Bergen Avenue in the early hours of July 17, raises a complex set of circumstances.

"Yet, this really raised a simple set of circumstances since the overwhelming majority of police chiefs interviewed by the Road Warrior stated they would never allow a police officer to be stationed in their car at night on a very narrow shoulder of a major highway without any car lights, no matter what the circumstances are.

"Road Warrior appears to be illiterate or needs eyeglasses since he indicated that a big sign on a resident’s property facing Route 17 advised drivers to 'Slow Down - Drive Safe - Value Life.'"

"Nowhere does this sign say "Drive Safe" in the very clear picture of the sign posted with the column [on Page 1]".

See: 

Is there any way to police the mistaken Road Warrior? 

Goodell family

I wonder if Goodell's survivors will be able to find a lawyer to make a civil case for monetary damages -- not only against the trucking company that employed a driver who might have fallen asleep before he smashed into the cop's cruiser -- but against the Waldwick police chief who put the officer in such a vulnerable position.

Saturday's paper

On Saturday, The Record published a photo on A-6 showing a woman with her hand at Governor Christie's throat, but the caption makes absolutely no attempt to tell the reader what exactly is going on.

Two corrections are published on Saturday's A-2. One fixes the misspelling of a councilman's name.

The Woodland Park daily continues to report on fatalities caused by tractor-trailer drivers (Saturday's A-1), but has made no attempt to determine if those crashes are linked to declining enforcement, a subject the Road Warrior has long ignored.

On Saturday's Local front, another photo caption doesn't identify the morons who thought their cars could float on flood waters blocking Route 17 south in Saddle River.

Second look

On Friday, Ung's rave review of Mezza in Westwood doesn't come clean on the Mediterranean restaurant's high lunch and dinner prices.

$32 for scallops, $7 for a small serving of tabbouleh and $12 for an eggplant appetizer are pricey, "not good for the quality," as she wrote, without ever discussing whether the food is naturally raised or grown.