Either way, Christie will leave New Jersey in shambles

This nondescript patch of asphalt -- three local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge -- was quiet on Monday afternoon, but Fort Lee police responded in force to the Washington Bridge Plaza shopping center nearby and arrested a robbery suspect.

At the intersection of traffic and the Christie administration's political retribution against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee. Closure of two of the three access lanes to upper level tollbooths occurred one year ago Tuesday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie, his aides and his cronies on the Port Authority managed to cover up their involvement in the massive traffic jams at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge for a good four months, well past the November election that gave the GOP bully a second term.

There was no hint in the media the Christie administration had anything to do with closure of bridge access lanes on Sept. 9-13, 2013, until January, when this e-mail from the governor's deputy chief of staff was uncovered:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Endless speculation

Today, the front and editorial pages of The Record carry two more attempts to measure the damage to Christie's presidential ambitions, but what difference does it make (A-1 and A-11)?

Whether Christie leaves office to run for president in 2016 or at the end of his term in 2017, New Jersey will still be in shambles.

By any measure, the Garden State is far worse off in the first year of his second term than it was when he took office in January 2010 -- tax revenue, job creation, roads, mass transit, the shore, Atlantic City and, most important, pride.

Under Christie, the Jersey jokes have returned with a vengeance.

Just look at the photo from late March news conference the governor called to unveil his legal team's cover-up, which has already cost taxpayers more than $7 million (A-6).

The sheepish look on Christie's face screams, Get me out of here!

Law breakers

More than 1,000 motorcyclists broke every local anti-noise ordinance on the books, and still managed to land a glowing story on the Local front today (L-1).

Some of the Fort Lee police officers who responded to the Washington Bridge Plaza shopping center in Fort Lee on Monday afternoon, above and below.

A couple having lunch at the Binghamton Bagel & Deli reported a white man in a hoody with his pants worn low on his buttocks walked in and asked, "Who has the money?" They called police.

North Jersey Syrians

A rare story about Syrian exiles also appears on the Local front today, where Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports on the support they are receiving from the long-established community in Paterson and other towns  (L-1).

On L-3, the skeleton newsroom staff in Woodland Park made no attempt to find out if "a person" who jumped "from the Terrace Avenue Bridge onto southbound Route 17 [in Hasbrouck Heights] on Sunday morning" was killed.

But the caption does tell readers who are blind "the investigation caused traffic to be diverted."

Corrupting corn

Leave it to one of The Record's clueless freelancers to take wonderfully sweet Jersey corn -- which needs little more than steaming and a sprinkle of salt -- and recommend two ways you can prepare it and clog your arteries (BL-1 and BL-2).