Having killed the Hudson River tunnel, permitting the continuation of horrible traffic over the next generation, Chris Christie's administration may have deliberately created a terrible traffic jam by closing lanes for vengeful purposes.
Steve Benen and Rachel Madoow have been all over the story of the mysterious closing of two out of three lanes connecting Ft. Lee, NJ to the George Washington Bridge. NJ Democrats allege that it was done on Chris Christie's orders to retaliate against the Mayor of Ft. Lee for not supporting his re-election, and they are holding hearings on it.
On Friday a Port Authority employee appointed by Christie abruptly resigned.
According to the NY Times:
Mr. Christie’s associates at the Port Authority, [bridge workers] said, ordered bridge workers to shut down the lanes with three days’ notice despite warnings that it would cause havoc, and that changes of this magnitude typically took years of planning. They were instructed not to tell anyone — not the news media, not Fort Lee, not even the Port Authority’s executive director, who is an appointee of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, they said. They protested, but went along, they said, because they feared retribution.
Bridge workers, said the Times, found the closings “unprecedented,” “odd” and “wrong.”
The bridge director, Robert Durando, was questioned in a hearing yesterday by Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski:
“Your testimony tells me that there is a culture of fear at the Port Authority,” Mr. Wisniewski said. “Is there a culture of fear?”
Mr. Durando sat silently.
“I think your answer speaks for itself,” Mr. Wisniewski said finally.
(Ed. Note -- This is the third in a continuing series attempting to expose Chris Christie as the right wing dissembler that he is. The first was about his willfully ignorant position on ACA state exchanges. I am going to try to weave "Tunnel" into any diary about Chris Christie, no matter what the subject. His Tunnel-cide of the Hudson River project was an opportunistic disgrace, for which he has suffered no consequences. Who will suffer? Anyone who breathes the air on both sides of the Hudson, anyone who vegetates in a car for an unnecessary hour on that hellish circular ramp on the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel, anyone would have gotten years' worth of employment on the project and all of us for the lost economic development of the region and country.)
