Turnpike Plan Would Add $1 Billion
To Jersey's Transportation Tab
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign urged New Jerseyans
to approach Governor Codey’s announcement that
he would seek to add lanes to the New Jersey Turnpike
between Middlesex and Burlington counties with caution.
Although the bottleneck where the highway’s truck
lanes end between Exits 8 and 8A represents a tremendous
traffic problem, the Turnpike will have to explain why
such an extensive project — comprising 40 to 80
miles of new lanes — will be needed to provide
some relief for it.
Transit Funding Spotlght on Governor Pataki
Mayor Bloomberg has said he will oppose the fare increases
the MTA board is slated to vote in favor of Dec. 16,
even if he has declined to wage a real campaign in favor
of sensible mass transit funding.
Route 92 on the Back Burner
It is possible that setting the Turnpike Authority the
task of extending new lanes southward from the truck
lane merge near the Middlesex-Mercer county border will
change the focus of transportation planning in central
New Jersey away from the Turnpike’s proposed and
hotly contested Route 92 plan.
Land Use Key to Transport Planning
In an interview with the NY Transportation Journal, NY
State transportation commissioner Joseph Boardman says
that "one of the important things we found in the
statewide master plan hearings we conducted this summer
(MTR #467) was the level of interest and discussion on
land use planning in every community."
NJ Transit's Achilles Heel
New Jersey Transit is the only mass transit system of
comparable size in the United States that does not enjoy
some form of dedicated tax revenue to support its operating
budget.
Transportation Department's Transparency Tested
NYS Department of Transportation was one of the government
agencies that passed NYPIRG's recent open government
test. NYPIRG sent Freedom of Information letters to various
agencies and tracked timeliness of responses.
NYC BRT Work Underway
Though information about the meeting was poorly advertised
and therefore few citizens attended, NYC DOT and Transit
held the first public meeting – on Staten Island – for
their joint bus rapid transit study last week.
Ferries Affordable?
NY Waterway announced this week that it is cutting three
routes in Jersey City and Hoboken. The company said that
if it does not receive assistance soon, there will be
more cutbacks followed by a possible shutdown next winter.
