Merry Christmas; PATH looks to add new cars, repair others and make more improvements

PATH now has $300 million in their stocking and are looking to possibly buy new train cars, rehab other ones and run more trains during rush hours. PATH says when this plan is finished, along with a new flood-proof power station in Harrison they hope to be able to run 19% more trains during the busiest times. The devil is in the details which you can find here along with your mistrust the Port Authority can get anything right which you brought with you when you showed up here.

The time has come to confront and video both NJ Transit and PATH workers over attitude and service

"The way you get a better world is, you don't put up with substandard anything" said Joe Strummer and right now both NJ Transit and PATH are beyond substandard in customer service and service in general. Sadly, that will take you getting your cell phone out and asking questions of workers. Get your cell phones out when PATH and NJ Transit workers are being condescending or rude. Light 'em up. Confront their bad behavior, confront their lack of information. If workers start badgering a passenger for no real reason, get the cameras out. They simply do not have a right to treat you like this. Is everyone in the tri-state going to wait until someone gets bloodied and dragged like United Airlines before speaking up?

Bullshit. These are entities who take YOUR money to run on tracks YOU pay for. You are beyond part owner of the train system. This lack of information, surly employees and a general lack of caring about just who pays their wages is beyond broken, it requires citizens take matters into their own hands and act.

Attitude/surly employees - videotape it, post it
Broken trains - videotape it, post it
People standing around without being given any instruction - videotape it, post it
Late trains - videotape the time boards, post it

If you want better train systems serving the area, sadly neither NJ Transit or PATH give two shits about you as long as the money comes in, you'll have to do it yourselves. No, you're gonna have to let the employees you come in contact with know and keep letting them know.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Keep after them.

The Port Authority is paying PATH employees overtime to sleep

You wanna complain to their supervisor? He's sleeping on that desk over there. 

This is horrifying, people. PATH tells us they need to close tunnels on weekends for years at a time for our safety. They tell us there will be a need for emergency repairs so certain lines will be shut or shuffled with little warning. They tell us they still need time to clean up four years after Sandy.

Do they?

This report really shines a light on the fact just about every claim the Port Authority and PATH makes about why they close tunnels on certain lines for arbitrary amounts of times can be called into question. NO, The Port Authority do NOT get the benefit of the doubt that their claims have to be believed. Bridgegate, all their credibility lost right there. The fact the P.A. hands out your tax money in overtime pay to these slug-a-beds like Halloween candy should make everyone all the more upset. Only an independent forensic accounting of these layabouts will do.

We don't really do endorsements here but think about Port Authority appointees and who makes them in next year's governor's race New Jersey.

Don't forget, this is the weekend the PATH says they're have mandated work to do

So the 33rd St. line will be closed from Friday at midnight til Monday at 5am for what PATH and the Port Authority says is federally mandated work to improve safety which is true. This work at a snails pace (Getting paid by the hour by the union?) will continue into December, maybe longer.

It was mandated EIGHT YEARS AGO. Take your time Port Authority and PATH. It's only our safety. Also, don't let prices and costs rise or anything before you get started. Your orders on this are as old as the Jersey City Desk. Congratulations.

We're one big step closer to another Hudson River tunnel

Amtrak and thew Port Authority have pushed $70 million in chips to the middle of the table in a gamble to get the current momentum to the unstoppable point. Cory Booker is very confident this will now get done:

Federal officials, including U.S. Senator Cory Booker, D-NJ, the Port Authority and New York and New Jersey officials, made the announcement Wednesday, which marks the first major progress on the tunnel project since Govs. Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo announced a funding agreement between the states and federal government. 

Transportation agencies are in a race against time to start the $20 billion Gateway Project before one of two 106-year-old tunnels has to be taken out of service to repair flood damage, which would severely disrupt commuter rail service. 

"This is huge. It is a significant step," Booker said. "We're farther down the field than I thought we'd be last summer."

Anyone within 20 miles of the tunnel crossings know how badly another train tunnel is needed. One is going to have to be taken out of service within the next few years to fully clean Superstorm Sandy damage. Without tunnels and bridges New Jersey isn't even New York's parking lot. So there's that.

We've already seen how long the Pulaski ClusterFuck Memorial Skyway is taking and will take another half year (and just wait, that'll get pushed back too) and here we're talking a tunnel below a big river. The Skyway is existing infrastructure over a medium sized river. More important info on timing and funding at this handy link.

The Johnny Action Space Punk Trans Hudson Tunnel or "The Johnny" it has a ring to it.

Important, perhaps weather related PATH announcement

PATH service between Journal Square and Newark has been completely suspended at this late, wet hour according to the Port Authority as of 11:45pm:

PATH service from Newark-Journal Square, in both directions, is currently suspended.

Could be weather-flooding related. Could be White Walkers. We'll let you know when we find out.

Quite the bombshell this morning, and it goes off next to the Mayor

The Jersey City Daily posted a link on Twitter that helps show a mayor obsessed with fighting the Port Authority. Former Jersey City Police Chief Robert Cowan noted in court documents that though he had only recently assumed command, he said in Superior court documents that a top Fulop staffer told him exactly how they were going to try and "to obtain leverage against the Port Authority," and in doing so Cowan said, he saw illegal actions taking place:

Cowan's complaint in Hudson County Superior Court describes a meeting on Nov. 4, 2013, in which the mayor's chief of staff "issued an unlawful order to Cowan, instructing Cowan to establish a traffic stop (looking for seat belt violations) with the intent of shutting down traffic outside of the Holland Tunnel."

In fact Cowan said it wasn't just seat belts at the Holland Tunnel that had the mayor focused like a laser on the PA (Johnny's words), no, it gets much more vindictive, read on citizen:

Fulop's office nevertheless called Cowan in a week later to discuss plans for a traffic stop meant to check trucks coming out of the Port Jersey Global Container Terminal, according to the complaint.

When Cowan balked again, Fulop's allegedly responded with, "this is not a negotiation, I am telling you to do this."

Cowan says the truck stops at the terminal occurred on Nov. 18 and Nov. 18 but that he shut the traffic stop down because he perceived that the back-up it caused was "hazardous and a misuse of police resources."

An "angered" Fulop allegedly called for another stop to harass the Port Authority, but Cowan says he told the mayor "that his instructions were unlawful."

"Fulop became visibly angry and reminded Cowan: 'you serve at my pleasure' threatening that Fulop could remove Cowan as chief if he so desired," the complaint states.

So ladies and jellyspoons, Mr. Steve Fulop, Mayor of Jersey City and so obsessed with getting leverage over the Port Authority he's willing to make orders his police chief finds illegal on their face.

If this is true, and outside the city denying the overall lawsuit filed by Cowan, nobody in the Fulop administration has denied these comments, then we as a city have a problem. A egotistical "I'm never wrong problem" in our city. An "I'm willing to do whatever I want laws be damned" problem. Sure the Port Authority are assholes. Sure they rip us off daily. But we'd expect more from the mayor of Jersey City over this. Much more.

Round One in Mayor Steve Fulop's lawsuit against the Port Authority goes to...

...Mayor Fulop and Jersey City. You'll recall Fulop sued the Port Authority (which will get anyone in good graces with Johnny) on the grounds they owe our fair city over $400 million in unpaid taxes. The PA tried to get the cases dismissed by spending thousands and thousands of your tax dollars and bridge fees on attorneys fees and lost...this round.

Going after a giant monolith with a Smaug-like pile of lawyering cash is never easy and always takes a long time. Now that the lawsuit it would seem has merit no doubt the Port Authority will now want a 10% increase to cover, uh, incidentals like more lawyers.

MTA doing what the MTA does best...

...taking your money. A quick note into the Jersey City Desk newsroom, the MTA will begin tacking on an extra two bits, or .25¢ to most folks upping a one-way trip to $2.75 come March. This equals the increase in PATH fares with also now cost $2.75 one-way.

We have time for a quick news roundup this evening

* A Newark police officer chased down a suspect on horseback and made the collar. Go Dudley Do-Right go!

* The Port Authority CAN go ahead and raise tolls on bridges and tunnels in December after all.

* A Manhattan Federal Judge said a woman in North Bergen can KEEP a stolen 7.4 carat diamond, yowser.

* Eli Manning told Tiki Barber to shut his talk hole about Giants coach Tom Coughlin.

* Paul Mulshine has a great article on the Orwellian world of driving in New Jersey.

* And finally, since the weed is legal in Washington state why not have a YouTube video of three grandmas toking up for the first time.

Mayor Fulop's terrible awful no good week

It's been a bad week for Jersey City mayor Steve Fulop dear readers. Late last week Fulop sprung a previously unannounced plan to take train cars full of New York City garbage and park them in Greenville and Port Liberte in the Greenville Yards. The Jersey Journal's Terrence T. McDonald tells us thusly:

"...a proposal floated by Mayor Steve Fulop last week that would allow the city to collect a $10 million payment and $250,000 annually from waste disposal firm IESI in exchange for halting Jersey City's opposition to a garbage transfer station in Greenville Yards, where New York City municipal waste would be loaded from barges onto railroad cars and then moved out of the city."

Remind you of anything? Dumping garbage on people expecting something else entirely? Mayor Fulop reminds us here a whole lot of Montgomery Burns and his "Merry Fishmas" betrayal of the people of Springfield by tossing fish guts and garbage on them when they least expected it.

How do residents feel? We think unhappy is a starting point:

"We give you $10 million and you're gonna live in stink," is how Ocean Avenue resident Kathy Quirk describes the deal.

City council did their part to push the surprise announcement through by voting on it two whole days after Fulop brought the deal to light and once again Council President Rolando Lavarro Jr. decided he knew best for somebody else's neighborhood. Again he proves if it can make money or can impress the mayor he does not give a shit about you or your neighborhood. The vote was 5-2-1 for garbage trains. Boggiano and Yun were no votes, everyone else was yes except oddly enough Frank Gajewski who represents Greenville was on vacation and did not vote. He previously said he was against the plan. Joyce Watterman abstained. As many of you know we here are very impressed by Candice Osborne. That being said we noticed a couple weeks back she was very much against a zoning change to allow an extra seven floors on a building in her neighborhood but yet voted for garbage trains in someone else's. *John Belushi raised eyebrow*

Wait a minute, what's that? Quoteth ESPN Gameday's Lee Corso "Not so fast my friend!"

The Port Authority whom Fulop earlier this year sued he said on Jersey City's behalf for $400 million in unpaid taxes were probably drawing straws to see who got to tell Fulop his plan was DOA. They stopped it faster than a bug on a windshield. Gotta be shocking to live in Greenville and Port Liberte and realize the Port Authority is looking out for you more than your elected city government, yes? They even took a dig at Fulop by saying in a statement "We will require assurances that adequate consultations with local public officials and concerned citizens have occurred..." OUCH!

So getting shut down by the Port Authority like that so publicly after thinking you'd succeeded in ramming a deal down Greenville and Port Liberte's throats is pretty bad. What could make this week worse?

Fulop's Chief of Staff, Muhammed Akil, resigned today saying his comments made some twenty years ago, that were hateful and pretty stupid, let's face it, were a distraction to Mayor Fulop. Look, don't we all just make mistakes? Haven't we all said stupid shit we wish we could take back? Everyone has. Those who say otherwise are lying. Life is about mistakes and learning from them in becoming better people. Muhammed Akil had quite clearly met that bar. Not everyone learns from mistakes and we read about them usually in the crime blotters. Akil had become a success and we figured this too would blow over just like potty mouth trash hater Brooke Hansson's now-classic YouTube performance. Johnny talks with people in and out of city hall. Lives near one. Nobody was screaming for Akil to go. Unless of course this might look bad for someone say running for governor to have a chief of staff having said such things back when, but Jersey City nary batted an eye over it. This raises the question about whom the resignation is more aimed at, Jersey City or Trenton.

A lot of goodwill burned up for nothing, every neighborhood now on alert for secret deals they know nothing of but will be armed to the teeth with lawyers for when they poke their heads up, and a city asset chased off by the ghosts of what might be.

"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day."

JSQ-33rd & 33rd-HOB PATH still shut tight

According to the Port Authority the JSQ-33rd & 33rd-HOB PATH line is still shut tight due to a fire over the tracks in NYC.

Get your hot fresh news roundup, get it while it's HOT

* On a personal note, as Dan Levin pointed out on Twitter after Ward E councilwoman Candice Osborne had a cow about a skunk under or near her own porch:

Daniel Levin ‏@DanLevin_inJC  59m
murder left and right, out of control spending continues, NO budget and the only thing concerning downtown is skunks

* Atlantic City has raised property taxes 29% to cover what the failing casinos can't put back into the coffers (though they PROMISED it to get tax abatements). Ironically Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop is in AC today talking to AFSCME workers. No doubt telling them they'll pay more if his wrongheaded 95 story casino at Liberty State Park ever gets off the ground. Casinos in NJ are a bad bet for everyone.

* For long-time New Jersey residents or those who are fascinated by cold cases, a woman living in Florida has finally been charged with the 1991 murder of her son in Sayreville.

* The Port Authority has said "No way Jose" to the charges that they owe Jersey City some $400 million is a lawsuit filed by JC Mayor Steve Fulop.

* Accuweather is predicting early snow for the Garden State, Thanksgiving to be exact. They say a big snowstorm is practically expected around Turkey Day this year.

* Finally, a trip to Jefferson Township New Jersey where a bear has it ALL figured out. People, I'll act like people...

Brooklyn's surrender to Jersey City yesterday does raise one big question

The Brooklyn Bridge and the new World Trade Center have both now been accessed by base jumpers, teenagers and now pranksters with what sounds to be white spray paint over the USA flags on the Brooklyn Bridge. These are two of we'd guess the top four or five targets that would appeal to real evildoers. In both cases an alert NYPD officer or PA officer could have stopped each attempt at accessing the structures. Billions are spent on homeland security in the tri-state whether it be NYC proper or shipping or flights out of the three major airports. If security or police personnel aren't doing their jobs right then all the money in the world won't keep anyone safe.

Some over-the-top goofballs are trying to claim the white flags on the Brooklyn Bridge is some kind of terrorist act. Kindly remove head from ass. It's a prank. The powers that be are quite lucky all these events have been pranks or just for fun. They're getting a free lesson in how not to protect landmarks.

So the World Trade Center is gonna open this year and they only need one more thing...

Renters.  As of Jersey City Desk press time the new WTC is only just over 50% rented and set to open this fall to new tenants. Conde Nast is in for a million square feet and a government department will take up more floors yet. That being said ONE private company has signed on the dotted line in the last three years. How bad is it? The WSJ says the WTC is cutting rent in order to attract more tenants:

The owner—a venture of developer Douglas Durst and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—is cutting asking rents nearly 10% to $69 a square foot for larger tenants on the building's middle floors, down from $75 a square foot, Mr. Durst said in an interview Friday.

Slow leasing has led to rent cuts at One World Trade Center, pictured in September 2013. Associated Press "The market's not there," said Mr. Durst, whose Durst Organization bought a stake in the tower from the Port Authority in mid-2011. "When we started in 2011, everybody expected the economy to take off, and obviously that hasn't happened."

So, New Jersey residents, if you know someone who'd like a tony new business address it can only help us to get them hooked up, we're forever paying for the WTC via the Port Authority so at least we'd get to see the lights on and know people are working.

The weekend discounted ferry service between Jersey City and lower Manhattan will continue through 2014

Great news Jersey City residents, due to the diligent hard work of people like downtown councilwoman Candice Osborne, the Jersey City to NYC ferry service operating at the $2.50 discounted price WILL continue through the end of the year because of the great response by we the people:

"I had no doubts this pilot would be successful and I am thrilled it will continue during the shutdown," Osborne told The Jersey Journal. "It is good for our residents, our small businesses and our city overall."

Terrence T. McDonald with the Jersey Journal has more on the evolution of the decision to keep the ferry running at a discounted price of $2.50:

The service had been operating on a six week pilot program that ends this weekend, but it provided enormously popular, with thousands of passengers taking advantage of it for the past five weekends. Over 4,000 riders used it during the cold, rainy weekend that it debuted, and ridership has only increased as temperatures have risen.

Candice Osborne has turned out to be a real force for good in our fair city. We're also glad to see the citizens take advantage of a great program. It's a win-win situation!

Why the Port Authority didn't extend PATH out to Newark Airport before is puzzling

So NOW the Port Authority, flush with a $27.6 billion plan, is planning to extend the PATH line out to Newark Liberty Aeropuerto. First off this is FANTASTIC. Johnny is gonna go do a happy dance for a second, he'll be right back.....

...OK, Johnny has made his last damned airport run once this is built!! Walk with people or drive them with their suitcases, should they need, to an existing PATH station near his house instead of driving out to Newark? Yes please! Moar of that!! You can read the AP article via NJ.com and see if this idea isn't a good one whose time was 10 years ago.

Chris Christie can start working on the resignation speech now -- HE KNEW!

Well first things first. First, which scandal are we talking about? The G.W. Bridge scandal. Christie's school chum (and Christie barely even knew the guy before he fired him *wink wink*) David Wildstein says Christie was well aware the entire time despite his "Aw shucks some bad people did some bad things" speech a few weeks back:

In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago.

So New Jersey, and to a lesser extent America, we got lied to. Johnny said the tells were there on the day Christie gave the speech he wasn't telling the truth. The question now is what are we gonna do about it? Are we gonna sit there and take it? Johnny sure isn't. Christie gave a two hour presser where he lied most of the time. Right to us. So, who do you believe NOW about the threat of holding back Hoboken relief for the right answer on the Rockefeller Property?

Seriously New Jersey, what are we gonna do about it?

The GW Bridge closure fiasco goes right to the top -- A smoking gun found in Fort Lee

You remember Governor Chris Christie blowing off speculation that the suspicious lane closures at the GW Bridge that jammed up Fort Lee traffic (including emergency service vehicles) saying they were nothing more than a traffic study right? Forget the fact most traffic studies are done as computer models. Forget the fact ONE Christie ally at the Port Authority said the public wasn't to know about any of this. Forget the fact in his first term Christie's people, through nothing more than their own incompetence cost New Jersey schoolkids some $400 million in federal funding and then tried blaming it on Obama faceless bureaucrats until they got busted for simply not bringing a couple required pieces of paper.

So Christie roared his horrible roar which brings us to today. Mr. Christie, we just know you're an avid Jersey City Desk reader, do you know a woman in your employ goes by the name Bridget Anne Kelly? The state website says she's your Deputy Chief of Staff. Well sit down Governor because you're gonna love what Bridget has been up to. According to the New York Times, she sent an email saying, well here, here it is:

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” she emailed David Wildstein, Mr. Christie’s close friend and appointee at the Port Authority.

Damn CC, do you allow your Deputy Chief of Staff the leeway to jam up an interstate crossing and backup traffic and emergency services in Fort Lee? Wow, Johnny wants to work for you! It's kind of like the opposite of those online games where you build up civilizations, only here you mess up the grid and screw over the peasants because the local cerf won't say you're great.

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” WTF Gov? Sure, you'll toss her to the wolves and say, "Whoa look at that wildcat who's so out of control" but we know. Your options are somewhat limited. You can't say you did it yourself or the Tea people would have an actual issue to use against you next January in Iowa. You took out retribution on Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, because he refused to kiss the ring. What you did was use and inconvenience the people of New Jersey and anyone else slowed down at the GW Bridge in your pique. 

The same people you looked like you cared about after Sandy. 

Hudson County is one step closer to an MTA tunnel through Hoboken and Secaucus

Three years after Governor Chris Christie bloviated about cost overruns and canceled a tunnel running the MTA 7 line, approval moved forward for a tunnel from Secaucus (stopping at the Frank Sinatra Memorial Platform in Hoboken) and connecting into the Grand Central Terminal, is a step closer to reality (and watch somebody try and take partial credit when he runs for President):

The Assembly Transportation, Public Works and Independent Authorities Committee pushed through a resolution in support of expanding the New York City Number 7 subway into New Jersey, according to the state legislature's website.

So, good! A study says 128,000 people would take that trip on the 7 from New Jersey to New York City a day. It eases the PATH ridership at rush hour, win. It will create commuter lots so less people run their tailpipes in traffic backups at both current car tunnels, win. It will save commuters money and no doubt the "We're above the law" Port Authority will stand to lose a lot of coin so that's funny if not a win.

The article says the tunnel still faces an uphill battle and it is on us now to rain down emails and phone calls to make sure everyone knows we want this. Well, get calling!