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Mother Jones
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More MoJo coverage of Chris Christie’s bridge scandal
Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal, Explained
Chris Christie: I Am “Heartbroken” and “Embarrassed” About Bridge Scandal—But Not Guilty
Christie Administration’s Bridge Lane Closure Slowed Search for Missing 4-Year-Old, Says Official
Chris Christie’s Not in the Clear Yet. These Text Messages Show Why.
Here Are the Chris Christie Emails Everyone Is Talking About
9 Times Chris Christie Denied Using a Bridge for Political Revenge
VIDEO: David Corn on What Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal Means for 2016
5 Unanswered Questions About Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal
At last week’s press conference over the George Washington Bridge lane closings that left the New Jersey borough of Fort Lee gridlocked in September, GOP Gov. Chris Christie told reporters, “Whether there was a traffic study or not, I don’t know.” But whether or not the closures were part of a legitimate study—a Christie aide ordered the lanes closed without mentioning one—the resulting gridlock was analyzed by the Port Authority. The results were a bit obvious: If you close lanes to the George Washington Bridge, you cause traffic.
The post-jam analysis was released last week by a state assembly committee investigating the scandal. It focused on what would happen if two of the three access lanes reserved for Fort Lee residents were shut down and instead made available to other drivers. Fort Lee, according to the Port Authority, provides about 4.5 percent of George Washington Bridge traffic. The remaining 95 percent or so got to work a little quicker: The 11,592 non-Fort Lee vehicles saved about 5 minutes each during the closure, resulting in about 966 vehicle hours saved. That wasn’t nearly enough to outweigh the cost—Fort Lee traffic resulted in 2,800 vehicle hours of delay. And the analysis noted that even if the traffic queues were half as long, the outcome would still be a net loss. Also, many vehicles sat so long in traffic that they missed peak toll hours, resulting in a revenue loss of $550 a day (or $137,000 over the course of a year).
A review by the Bergen Record found that the actual results may have been even worse than this analysis suggests. Other towns’ residents also use the Fort Lee access ramps, so the closed lanes delayed as much as 25 percent of the bridge’s motorists. But Port Authority political operatives used the 4.5 percent figure to try to convince nearby Republican lawmakers that the study was legitimate and that Fort Lee didn’t need three lanes, according to the Record. An email from former Port Authority official and Christie high school classmate David Wildstein to recently fired Christie aide Bridget Kelly includes talking points for Republican assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Jeff Bader, president of a trucking trade group, about how the closures benefited many New Jersey drivers:
Although Wildstein and other Christie allies tried to paint the closures as part of a necessary study, some Port Authority employees were suspicious. One general manager wrote in an email before the closure that the study could be done without leaving Fort Lee with only a single lane. He asked, “What is driving this?” Another supervisor replied, “A single toll lane operation invites potential disaster…It seems like we are punishing all for the sake of a few.”
As the Washington Post‘s Wonkblog points out, traffic studies rarely affect traffic at all. Engineers can measure normal traffic, simulate a closure or other change, and plug the numbers into formulas provided by the Institute of Transportation Engineers to yield the likely outcomes. When traffic does need to be altered, agencies typically do limited trial runs with a public review process to minimize the impact.
Moreover, it does not take a traffic engineer to realize that taking two of three lanes away from Fort Lee would lead to long lines and lots of waiting. But the ultimate conclusion of the post-gridlock review was not so definitive: It reads only “TBD.”
See the full report here:
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Port Authority traffic study assessment (PDF)
Port Authority traffic study assessment (Text)
Link:
Here’s the Traffic "Study" Chris Christie Wasn’t Sure Existed
Mother Jones
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A lot of American hawks have displayed a barely disguised admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin this year. Oh, he’s a thug and a bully all right, but at least he fights for his country’s interests—and wins. The appeaser-in-chief could learn a thing or two from him.
Not so fast, says Dan Drezner. Exhibit A in Putin’s 2013 display of statecraft was negotiating a deal for Syria to give up its chemical weapons, and Exhibit B was his strong-arming of Ukraine to reject membership in the EU’s Eastern Partnership and instead join Russia’s planned Eurasian Union. Victory goes to the thuggish! Except, not so much:
It turns out that a lot of Ukrainians were not happy about this turn of events, and have engaged in eleven days of massive protests. Even Yanukovich’s allies are now talking about reconciling with the domestic political opposition….The New York Times reports that “the anger over Russia’s role has made it all but impossible for Mr. Yanukovich to take the alternative offered by the Kremlin — joining a customs union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan”….Furthermore, as the Economist points out, the way Russia has lost is even more damning. Rather than EU pressure, it is domestic discontent that has stayed Yanukovich’s hand: “It is far better for the EU that the backlash against Mr Yanukovych comes from the streets of Kiev rather than from Brussels.”
As for that Syrian chemical weapons deal, it turns out that (a) Obama and John Kerry had a lot more to do with that than we knew at first, and (b) regardless of the opposition of hardliners in Israel and Saudi Arabia, it’s worked out pretty well for the United States. The truth is that Putin hasn’t gotten a lot out of that deal, but we have.
Bottom line: Maximum belligerence isn’t the answer to every foreign policy problem. Obama’s approach might be messy, but over time it doesn’t look so bad after all.
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