As a condition of the widening, the turnpike should raise tolls to partly fund transit improvements in this corrider. Right now I am amazed there is NO MITIGATION for the widening required. Back in the mid-1980’s the widening through Elizabeth and from Exit 8A to 9 was required to do the following as mitigation for widening:

Put in an HOV lane. This was done, and remains the only HOV lane (3+) in the state with over 200 buses per hour
Two park-rides were built. Vince Lombardi was expanded by 900 parking spaces, and the Exit 8A park-ride of about 500 spaces was built, and new bus service put in, and recently expanded because it was so popular. Another park-ride at Exit 10 near Raritan Center was planned but dropped because of opposition and limited demand.

Tri-State and others should campaign for the Turnpike to invest in mitigation strategies for transit as part of the balance for this widening. Among the projects nearby that could benefit:

Funding for new park-rides or expanded bus service. This could include to Non-Ny locations like New Brunswick, or fund feeder bus services to Princeton Jct. Another would be to put some money into the Transportation Trust Fund for Northeast Corrider infrastructure imporvements to modernize part of the NEC in NJ, like the electrical system, or money for signal improvements to increase NEC train capacity, or funding to jump start things like the long term need to put in a 5th track at Metropark, or island platforms and new station facilities so AMTRAK trains could stop without delaying NJT trains. This would speed up all trains and decrease delays. The NEC infrastructure is becoming more problematic because of underinvestment by AMTRAK since the mid-1990’s. The Turnpike is part of the Northeast Corridor, and improvements to parallel transit infrastructure should be part of a total package which includes the widening

Face it: The automobile might not always be powered by fossil fuels, but it will ALWAYS be a huge part of the transportation picture.

Have you read the news lately? Gas is now over $3 nationwide and oil production worldwide is not keeping up with demand. All this and there is no current embargo or supply disruption. If we want to keep the region moving we need to shift away from promoting the private automobile over all other modes.

Call me alarmist, and I know the auto industry advocates have heard this “nonsense” before, but this is 2007 not 1980. In today’s world highway expansion is a bad investment no matter who ends up paying for it.

The alternatives that TSTC proposes might be appropriate for a highway that is primarily a commuter route. They would have little impact, however, on a roadway that serves as many long-distance travelers, including trucks, as the Turnpike does. Just ask some of the drivers who suffer the every-Sunday jam northbound from 7 to 8A.

That said, I also think the NJTA should go well beyond its mimimum obligations to mitigate the impacts to its neighbors. But it should also move forward with this long-overdue project — and let its users pay for it with higher tolls.

dweinstein(at)aaamidatlantic.com