Wake up the editors to our daily 'traffic turmoil'

Another Friday evening commute, another traffic jam in the northbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway. It's bad enough the parkway north narrows from 5 lanes to 3 (just past Route 280), but commuters were further slowed by two fender benders on the shoulders and mesmerized by the flashing lights of the investigating trooper's SUV at one of the minor accidents.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor


North Jersey and the rest of the metropolitan area are experiencing a transportation crisis of unparalleled proportions.

Little relief is in sight -- given Governor Christie's anti-mass transit policies and the media's well-known indifference to the plight of drivers caught in nightmarish traffic jams and other commuters packed into buses and trains.

Today's Page 1 headline in The Record -- "Another forecast of traffic turmoil" -- could run every day in one form or another.

Lazy reporting

Meanwhile, the Woodland Park daily wastes a salary on addled Staff Writer John Cichowski -- aka the Road Warrior -- whose error-filled column has only nibbled around the edges of the crisis.

Cichowski and the paper's other transportation writers could be of most service to readers by driving in rush-hour traffic or riding SRO buses and trains, and then asking officials the hard questions:
 

• Why does Christie rubber-stamp higher and higher tolls, but fails to encourage transit agencies to add more capacity, especially into Manhattan?
• When is the Port Authority going to add a second reverse lane into the Lincoln Tunnel, doubling bus capacity?
• Why aren't the new Amtrak rail tunnels into Manhattan being fast-tracked?

Get out and see
 
A drive around the metropolitan area on Friday  clearly demonstrated how heavy traffic is, and how easily it can be slowed to a crawl by lane closures, minor accidents and even the distraction of a state trooper's flashing lights on the side of the road.

New Jersey drivers were everywhere -- in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Staten Island Expressway and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; picking up their relatives at John F. Kennedy International Airport and clogging Manhattan streets with their enormous SUVs.

Undoubtedly, hundreds of those New Jersey drivers were among those who insist on driving everywhere and reserve the right to complain about astronomical tolls, high gas prices and congestion.

Jammed terminals

Meanwhile, waiting areas at Penn Station and the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan were overflowing with thousands of commuters competing for seats on crowded trains and buses.

It's typical of The Record that today's front page focuses on delays experienced by a minority of drivers between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. on the George Washington Bridge -- and ignores what the majority experience daily during the rush-hour breakdown of the transportation system.

Let them eat cake

Today's Better Living section carries a breathless report from Elisa Ung, the recently returned restaurant reviewer, on a greasy fried pastry just the thought of which gives many readers heart palpitations (BL-1).

Friday's paper

If you missed Friday's newspaper, you didn't miss anything.

A Page 1 story on American Dream, the stalled retail-entertainment project in the Meadowlands, quotes big wig Jon F. Hanson, best friend of Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg (A-1).

Repainting of the ugly exterior (like Christie, it's another Jersey joke) is described in the story as "remodeling of the multicolored exterior," but clueless Staff Writer John Brennan fails to tell readers what they most want to know -- when?

Hackensack news

On Friday's L-3, a story reports former Hackensack City Council candidate Kenneth Martin was fined $150 and ordered to pay $158 in court costs.

Martin was found guilty of stealing his opponents' signs outside Hackensack Market on Passaic Street, where the store's surveillance camera caught the retired detective in the act.

The story reports incorrectly that Martin's slate, Coalition for Open Government, lost all 5 seats in the May 14 election. It held only 4 seats.

Local dining

Better Living's reviews of local restaurants are crammed into less space than before, but the editors found room for a story from The Washington Post on amateur and professional food critics that runs on and on and on (BL-20 to BL-24).

'Disabled' reporter

There was so much missing or wrong information in Wednesday's Road Warrior column on handicapped parking tags and plates.

A concerned reader notes:

"The Road Warrior indicated the new law is only for qualified disabled drivers. But the new law covers any qualified disabled person, including those who do not drive, that needs handicap parking.

"He failed to address differences in requirements for those with temporary v. permanent disabilities.

"He was negligent to not provide the MVC Web site page with all requirements of the new law that went into effect on Thursday, and other disabled parking provisions."

Lazy editors are Road Warrior's crutches