State Assembly-elects for the 32nd Legislative District Ravi Bhalla and Katie Brennan are joining Jersey City advocates in opposing the new Turnpike widening plan, declaring that it will still bring “more cars, more traffic, and more pollution.”
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“It’s encouraging to see the Murphy administration reconsider parts of the project, but this doesn’t address the core issue of adding more lanes to the Turnpike,” Brennan said in a statement.
“The new plan would still double the number of lanes on the Newark Bay Bridge and bring way more traffic and pollution into Jersey City. All this does is move the bottleneck up from the two-lane Holland Tunnel to the two-lane stretch of Turnpike in Jersey City. That means even more cars will cut through the city on their way to the tunnel, making our streets more congested and less safe for pedestrians.”
Outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Fran O’Connor, who also serves as chair of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority Board of Commissioners, announced the changes on Friday evening.
They said the revised proposal would save $500 million, though critics feel that really isn’t a lot of money considering the overall price tag was previously earmarked at $11.7 billion.
Mayor-elect James Solomon, a two-term Ward E councilman, applauded the state for scrapping the six-land proposal for Jersey City, but added that more improvements should be made, as HCV first reported.
“Scaling this back is the right call, but the new plan still doesn’t make any sense. You’re going to have four lanes of bridge traffic merging into two lanes of highway traffic. That’s a recipe for permanent traffic jams and tunnel drivers getting off the highway and onto Jersey City and Hoboken streets earlier than they are now,” added Bhalla.
“This whole project is fundamentally flawed because widening the Turnpike at any point will only bring more cars, more traffic, and more pollution into our neighborhoods. The data on this is clear: when you add highway lanes, you induce demand for more cars. If we want to actually reduce congestion, we need to invest in mass transit.”
Additionally, Bhalla and Brennan are calling on Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill (D) to pause the project when she takes office, consider alternatives that would not add lanes or bring more traffic congestion into Jersey City, and invest any savings into NJ Transit service expansions.
Back in August when she was the Democratic nominee for governor, Sherrill told HCV that the project should be “more innovative,” but Phase I was a necessity.
“It’s not really a compromise if they didn’t work with anyone opposing it to come up with a solution. Community was ignored again. First, it still doubles the number of bridge lanes from four to eight, adding 20,000 more cars daily,” noted SafeStreetsJC President Tayla Schwartz, also a trustee for Hudson County Complete Streets.
“More cars will bring more pollution, more cut through driving, and more asthma to Newark and Hudson County. Second, it still throws away money that can be much better invested in fixing and extending transit, when the bridge can be replaced with one bridge for half the price. Finally, this new plan was forged with no outreach to the community affected by this plan and the advocates who have been asking for no widening for the last three years.”
Sustainable Jersey City Founder and Chair Deb Italiano echoed that sentiment.
“This debacle continues to be represented as a solution but again, the wishes of Jersey City residents haven’t been heard. This latest ploy is more akin to a ‘bait and switch’ rather than a good faith compromise that would serve the public interest,” she stated.
“A good portion of the budget for this misguided project should be reallocated to public transit projects, period, full stop.”
Two term democrat Gov. Phil Murphy said he will fix NJ Transit “if it kills me”. Since then we’ve been hit with worse service and unaffordable fare increases. Simply put – things have gotten worse. As long as NJ Transit can’t function properly, the state should deploy all possible solutions – including the one these bozos oppose.