Train station opus raises more questions than it answers

New Jersey-bound commuters in the NJ Transit Waiting Room at Penn Station in Manhattan. The Record's Sunday story on a new train station seemed to have a big hole in it -- about the size of two more Hudson River rail tunnels.

When an NJ Transit train is assigned a track in the Amtrak-owned station 10 minutes before its scheduled departure, commuters scramble to get a seat.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Thousands upon thousands of words on the potential expense of Amtrak buying land for a new midtown Manhattan rail station ran under a big, black headline on Sunday:

The $1B question

But the story on new trans-Hudson rail tunnels for New Jersey commuters by transportation reporter Christopher Maag of The Record raised its own $2 billion question.

Why is there no mention of the Moynihan Station Project, billed as the new Manhattan home for Amtrak and now under construction across the street from Penn Station in Manhattan? 

According to the Moynihan Station Development Corp. Web site:

"This project will create access to the Penn Station tracks and platforms through the James A. Farley Post Office Building for the first time.  The new entrances at the corners of 8^thAvenue and 31^st and 33^rd Streets will provide commuters with access to an expanded and ADA-compliant concourse underneath the Farley Building that will serve tracks 5 – 21 and serve as the commuter concourse for Moynihan Station."

It's also difficult to find a point of view in Maag's story on whether new Hudson River rail tunnels and a new station are essential to help relieve increasing traffic congestion -- no matter what they cost.

In the past decade, The Record's editors and reporters also have ignored the Port Authority's refusal to expand rail and bus transit.

Consumer news?

If Maag's front-page opus on Sunday didn't put you to sleep, a story on the Business front should do the trick:

Retail's brave new world

Inside Business, there is not one but two stories on the Detroit Auto Show (B-2 and B-6).

Izod Center

If you missed two front-page stories on the Izod Center last week, take a look at Columnist Mike Kelly's rewrite on Sunday's Opinion front (O-1).

Is there anything new here? Fresh? No. 

That shit-eating grin in his thumbnail photo is the reporter's way of saying he's pulled another fast on his editors and readers.

Angelo's Ristorante

Sunday's The Corner Table column from Staff Writer Elisa Ung reports Angelo's Ristorante hasn't changed much in 60 years (BL-1).

Waiters still wear tuxedos, a classy touch, but the montage on the Better Living front has readers doing a double take at the photo of founder Angelo Piccirillo, especially around his shirt collar.

Juxtaposed with his white collar is a triangular piece of white tablecloth from the dining room photo. That's pretty weird -- and sloppy.

Today's paper

As property taxes have increased, The Record has ignored the stubborn lack of consolidation in the nearly 90 towns in Bergen and Passaic counties.

Any possible move toward greater efficiency gets the editors so exited they run the speculation on Page 1, as you can see in today's report on a third town joining the Becton Regional High School District.

Second look

Staff Writer John Cichowski clearly didn't spend his vacation trying to make his so-called commuting column more accurate, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Jan. 11 column, the Road Warrior awakened from his comatose state of not publishing for four weeks and reached new lows with an unsubstantiated exaggerated claim that current falling gas prices below $2 will kill 9,000 more people annually in the United States due to more driving based on lower gas prices.

"Road Warrior reported on this claim of a sociology professor from South Dakota based on a minor study, which was also not in any way representative of the entire U.S., as admitted by the professor, that was disputed by every demographer and traffic safety expert that the Road Warrior referenced.

"This Road Warrior column repeatedly gave 'false' credence and ended with this claptrap claim, even though the Road Warrior completely forgot that he was working on a column published two days later that showed NJ road fatalities for drivers and passengers reached new historical lows in 2014, even though gas prices have plummeted from near $4 per gallon in 2013 to around $2 per gallon. 

See: Road Warrior poses a danger to credibility