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Tons Of Bridgegate Documents Released, Including So-Called Traffic Study
By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 11, 2014
Modified Jan 11, 2014
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 11, 2014
Modified Jan 11, 2014
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Yesterday afternoon, the NJ State Assembly Democrats posted thousands of pages of documents related to the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal. The Bergen Record reports, "Even before the closures began, the authority's top engineers warned that the changes could lead to 'potential disaster.'" No kidding!
The lane closures began on Monday, September 9, 2013 and lasted until the morning of Friday, September 13, 2013, when Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, appointed by Governor Cuomo, demanded the lanes be reopened. Port Authority executive David Wildstein, appointed by Governor Christie/Christie's appointee, initiated the closures—apparently at the command of Christie's deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly— by claiming a traffic study was needed. Here are some highlights from the documents:
On September 6, the Friday before the closures, supervisor of planning and operations Gerard Quelch wrote, "A single toll lane operation invites potential disaster. Even with a three lane operation, motorists experience 5-10 min each morning. It seems like we are punishing all for the sake of a few."
The Post reports, "Port Authority cops at the bridge learned only the Sunday before the closures that they were coming." George Washington Bridge manager Robert Durando also pointed out, "This operation has the potential to be very expensive and labor intensive. Annualized toll collector costs for the additional coverage this operation requires is in the $600K range. There are also, as yet undetermined police cost…"
Foye's livid email on September 13 reads, "Here is what I learned: reversing over 25 years of PA GWB operations, the three lanes in Fort Lee eastbound to the GWB were reduced to one lane on Monday of this week without notifying Fort Lee, the commuting public we serve, the ED or Media. A decision of this magnitude should be made only after careful deliberation and upon sign off by the ED… I'm apalled by the lack of process, failure to inform our customers and Fort Lee and most of all the dangers created to the public interest, so I'm reversing this decision now effective as soon as TBT and PAPD tell me it is safe to do so today."
On September 18, David Samson, the Port Authority's Chairman of the Board Of Commissioners who was appointed by Christie, said that Foye was "stirring up trouble." Samson wrote to Vice Chairman Scott Rechler (appointed by Cuomo), 'This is yet another example of a story, we’ve seen it before, where he distances himself from an issue in the press and rides in on a white horse to save the day. (If you need prior examples I will provide)-in this case he’s playing in traffic, made a big mistake."
And then there's actually a PowerPoint presentation with so-called traffic study. It's pretty stupid—it notes that they were "reallocating" Fort Lee lanes and that they knew they were killing the locals' EZ Pass lane. Even though "total savings" for regular lanes "would be approximately 966 vehicles hours of reduced delay," local Fort Lee "traffic is experiencing an additional 2,800 vehicles hours of delays. Even if queues ware half those simulated, the additional delay would still fare exceed the savings of mainline traffic." Then the conclusions page is TBD—it's not obvious that this is a terrible idea!
Port Authority Fort Lee Traffic Study
Wildstein resigned last year. Kelly was fired. An investigation is continuing.
Tagged
bridgegate
bridget anne kelly
Chris Christie
david wildstein
fort lee
George Washington Bridge
nj
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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