Chris Christie’s nightmare traffic jam
By Richard Cohen, WashPost, Published: December 16
On Sept. 9, access lanes to the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey to New York were suddenly closed. No warning was given — nothing posted days before or announced on the radio. Traffic backed up to the outskirts of Omaha (an approximation), reasonable people went mad, children were appropriately traumatized and the residents of Fort Lee, the New Jersey town at the western end of the bridge, got the gift of air pollution of the type that will, studies have shown, strike them down in later years as they venture out for the Early Bird Special. Their last words, you can be almost certain, will be, “Damn you, Chris Christie.”
The New Jersey governor has asserted that he had nothing to do with the totally capricious lane closings. As for his aides who instigated the mayhem, they insisted they were not — as alleged — getting even with the mayor of Fort Lee, the Democrat Mark Sokolich, who had failed to endorse the Republican Christie’s reelection, as some 60 other Democratic officials had prudently done. They said the lane closings — which lasted four days — were imposed to conduct a traffic study that, oddly enough, no one knows anything about and, furthermore, cannot find. It might prove that if you close lanes, traffic will back up.
The bridge is run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The governors of both states make the necessary appointments. (It’s not entirely inconceivable that New York’s Andrew Cuomo will wind up facing Christie somewhere down the road.) Inside the authority, Christie’s guys were widely viewed as his political operatives. One of them was David Wildstein, the governor’s friend since high school and former mayor of their home town of Livingston, N.J . The governor parked Wildstein at the authority at $150,000 per year and apparently gave him a year’s supply of traffic cones.
Another Christie friend and political ally, Bill Baroni, was also placed at the authority. He is a former state senator and was given a salary of $290,000. In the wake of the lane closings, both he and Wildstein have resigned, apparently hoping to end the matter. But New Jersey Democrats, a creative bunch, have come to call the affair “Bridgegate” and, armed with subpoena power in the legislature, are determined — for strictly good-government reasons — to get to the bottom of this.
(More here.)
On Sept. 9, access lanes to the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey to New York were suddenly closed. No warning was given — nothing posted days before or announced on the radio. Traffic backed up to the outskirts of Omaha (an approximation), reasonable people went mad, children were appropriately traumatized and the residents of Fort Lee, the New Jersey town at the western end of the bridge, got the gift of air pollution of the type that will, studies have shown, strike them down in later years as they venture out for the Early Bird Special. Their last words, you can be almost certain, will be, “Damn you, Chris Christie.”
The New Jersey governor has asserted that he had nothing to do with the totally capricious lane closings. As for his aides who instigated the mayhem, they insisted they were not — as alleged — getting even with the mayor of Fort Lee, the Democrat Mark Sokolich, who had failed to endorse the Republican Christie’s reelection, as some 60 other Democratic officials had prudently done. They said the lane closings — which lasted four days — were imposed to conduct a traffic study that, oddly enough, no one knows anything about and, furthermore, cannot find. It might prove that if you close lanes, traffic will back up.
The bridge is run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The governors of both states make the necessary appointments. (It’s not entirely inconceivable that New York’s Andrew Cuomo will wind up facing Christie somewhere down the road.) Inside the authority, Christie’s guys were widely viewed as his political operatives. One of them was David Wildstein, the governor’s friend since high school and former mayor of their home town of Livingston, N.J . The governor parked Wildstein at the authority at $150,000 per year and apparently gave him a year’s supply of traffic cones.
Another Christie friend and political ally, Bill Baroni, was also placed at the authority. He is a former state senator and was given a salary of $290,000. In the wake of the lane closings, both he and Wildstein have resigned, apparently hoping to end the matter. But New Jersey Democrats, a creative bunch, have come to call the affair “Bridgegate” and, armed with subpoena power in the legislature, are determined — for strictly good-government reasons — to get to the bottom of this.
(More here.)
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