A new chapter in the neverending story of the Pulaski Skyway rehab

The Neverending Story that is the Pulaski Skyway rehab pens a new chapter as a part of the entire loping project reopens to the public just mere years after the two year fix (now on it's fourth year) continues. What do you have for us oh NJDOT?

The reconstructed eastbound lanes of upper level of Route 139 in Jersey City between Central and Palisade avenues will reopen today, state Department of Transportation officials said.

The work being performed all along the four-lane roadway that runs from Kennedy Boulevard to the Holland Tunnel is part of the $1 billion Pulaski Skyway replacement project.

DOT officials said one travel lane will be open from Central Avenue to Oakland Avenue, and it will open to two lanes from Oakland Avenue to Palisade Avenue.

There's more, so much more on this, with road details that'll make your head hurt at this link. Go get an Advil first.

Guess what? "By the Hour Construction Company", er NJ DOT...

Is now pushing the Pulaski Skyway job back until summer 2018. NJ DOT, the same people who thoroughly inspected this bridge top to bottom and agreed to, ie signed off on a two year job. Oops, this is New Jersey and this is by the hour work, they keep finding "things' and "issues" that keep the cost increasing and the union workers lolling around until now it's been delayed for a third time and will take at least twice the original time.

What inept shitheels in charge at NJ DOT, yet nobody gives them what they really need a thorough up the shorts and down the pants accounting by a US Attorney of just how and why this horseshit goes on.

Get on those horses Jersey City, it's a News Roundup

OK, Johnny of course will be commenting on the fact Jared Kushner and the Kushner family who do lots and lots of business, despite their felonious history and now inside ties to Trump, managed to drop 100K into Mayor Fulop's SuperPAC (which aw shuckins he didn't know no nuthin' about). He needs proper time for proper research.

* Jersey City police caught the jackhole who stole from the firehouse last week while the firefighters were out on a call saving a life. As suggested before, rat bucket should be on the table.

* Chris Christie, who used to be a vocal opponent of ridiculous Muslim bans, and called those for them, "the crazies" has suddenly gone silent on the matter.

* You'll love this taxpayer. The State of New Jersey might be on the hook for $1.8 billion in payback to the Securities and Exchange Commission because -- dum dum dum -- The Port Authority may have misled them on the Pulaski Skyway dealings. It's late, it's over budget, and it might cost 10 times more.

* Another senseless and utterly unforgivable act of drunk driving has severely injured a Jersey City woman. Samaa Dessouki, do you have no shame?

* And finally, there will be an anti-Muslim ban rally tonight at 6pm at the Newark/Grove St  pedestrian plaza. Next week let's have one in Journal Square. The week after Greenville. All together now!

Avoid the Pulaski Skyway if you're headed out this morning

Traffic is backed up from the Pulaski Skyway back to the Tonnelle Circle here in Jersey City this morning due to an injury accident closing ALL lanes on the Skyway into Newark. NJ511.com can help and keep checking the Jersey Journal for more. 

We thought there were supposed to be less police waving at traffic around construction sites, not more

When Mayor Steve Fulop took office, he said that getting civilian-trained people who weren't police officers to handle traffic around construction sites in our fair city was the plan going forward. There would be less official police presence because, well there's still a lot of crime in Jersey City and they were also going to be using dozens and dozens of extra police in the mornings and afternoons to help smooth the Pulaski Skyway shutdown.

By any measure a quick walk anywhere downtown seems either the mayor's grand plan to take police away from low impact low stress jobs at building sites and put them back into policing the community is flailing about like a fish. Did police push back quietly to the point they themselves are getting these sweet shifts? Could the city not find people interested in making money standing at closed intersections and roads? Because by any metric you'd like to use the police are back handling all the road closures and the civilian-trained guards have become like Jersey City's own Sasquatch, seen rarely, never filmed and mostly tall tales.

So Mr. Fulop, what happened?

3 cops, one intersection

Pulaski-Palooza!

We're sending out the bat signal this morning and hoping for commentary or pictures of anyone having to deal with the Pulaski shutdown. Feel free to send those along. Johnny's email is near the bottom of this page on the right.

Commuting is hell enough, how is this/did this make this morning worse?

Jersey City reveals their plan for when the Pulaski Skyway goes bye bye

Jersey City has a very extensive plan for traffic patterns, the motorists who use them, and those about to be caught up in one hell of a mess. The Pulaski Skyway will close to northbound traffic Saturday April 12th. 3,500 people use the northbound lane an hour. Therein lies the mess. It's been well lamented by so many.

But, what we hadn't heard was Jersey City's plan for dealing with the shutdown. We know it now. The city is planning on putting FIFTY ONE off-duty police officers around the expected pinch-points and direct traffic at streets that will be closed to certain turns. What's that? You didn't know left hand turns are going to be banned in certain places at certain times? Right hand turns in some place too. For example:

Traffic headed east on Communipaw Avenue will not be able to make any turns, left or right, onto West Side Avenue or Bergen Avenue.

The hours of the new bans on rights and lefts will be from 6-10am only (at this time). 

Confused? Wondering which streets will have limited access? Then you need this handy article by Terrence T. McDonald at the Jersey Journal.

Ye Olde News Roundup

Some breaking news, some odd news, some traffic related news, and of course feel free to chime in with "Teh Snark." (and yes we meant teh -- ed)

*On the breaking news front the mother of the baby found alive four days ago in a trash bag in JC has been arrested.

*Mayor Steve Fulop will go before a very friendly city council and ask for paid sick days for both full and part-time workers for businesses operating in the city. Zoltron and Kiki, both loyal to a fault, are still technically interns here and thus, no paid sick days. Interns for life.

*Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey should begin his job in Jersey City in, well, about now.

*Something being called an "adaptive traffic signal system" will be used on local traffic lights to help alleviate some of the expected massive traffic shifts when General Pulaski goes partially dark.

*The westbound lanes on 139 are back open after yesterdays game of dodge rubble.

*Disgraced losing city council wannabe Lori Serrano (Solomon Dwek) seemed awfully happy for someone who just got hit with a $1000 fine, 18 months probation and no ability to run for public office again. Yes we know it's nice she has seemingly gotten her house in order but you know what? One is supposed to not sink back into a life of crime. You're supposed to 'rehabilitate' yourself.

*Johnny can smell a nuisance motion in Hoboken a mile city away. Luis Zayas, who represents Angel Alicea, former Hoboken public safety director says Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer somehow perjured herself in a deposition. Zayas used a lot of legalese and lingo and fancy legal phrases you'll be sure to want to write down next time you play lawyer Bingo.

*Finally, the NFL kicks off tonight in an overhyped, overblown, overproduced season opening spectacular when the Los Angeles Rams visit the Houston Oilers.

Light traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway, 1 hour inbound at the GW bridge, 30 minutes outbound, we have a goat related accident in the north lane of the Pulaski Skyway...UPDATE

Actually we have a few car accidents because of a goat today. A goat, who did not give the Jersey Journal his name or where he was from, held up traffic in the northbound lanes of the Pulaski Skyway this morning causing a 4 car accident. While the cars were stopped witnesses say the goat had a merry time jumping up on, and using cars as stepping stones.

Animal control was on the scene while the goat was corralled and went peaceably. No word on the origin of the goat. If you have information or are actually missing a goat this morning please call Goatfinders at (201) 547-5492.

UPDATE 6:20pm: From the Jersey Journal, a happy ending, "Sky" the goat will go live on a rescue farm:

City officials say "Sky" will remain at the farm in Wantage until its owner comes forward. If the owner doesn't claim it, she will remain there.

Pulaski Skyway Shutdown: City Held Hostage!!

Big stories with big ideas need big annoying headlines like you see on teevee news don't you think?

We'll start with Terrence T. McDonald at The Jersey Journal:

Hudson County and Jersey City officials this morning urged a state Assembly panel to consider options to minimize the traffic nightmare expected when the northbound lanes of the Pulaski Skyway close for two years starting in 2014.

Here's another issue where Mayor Healy and Councilman Fulop argue on the same side yet because of the political acrimony can't really show too much cooperation. The Mayor understands the huge impact this has on our city:

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy additionally suggested banning single-occupancy vehicles from the Holland Tunnel during rush hours. Healy acknowledged that the Skyway “must be fixed,” but added that even on a normal day there is a crush of vehicles heading in and out of Manhattan during rush hours.

Fulop too understands the economic impact this will have beyond just traffic:

“I think that the costs to the financial Waterfront, our business committee … could be much more substantive,” Fulop said. Jersey City Ward E City Councilman Steve Fulop, meanwhile, told the panel that the DOT should explore keeping one of the northbound lanes open, even if it means the rehabilitation project takes longer and costs more.

But citizens for once people came with possible solutions in mind not just brickbats. Ideas on having motorists carpool from the Frank Lautenberg Secaucus Junction station (good luck with that), extending Jersey Avenue out to the Turnpike extension and keeping one lane open northbound regardless. Johnny likes very much the idea of extending Jersey Avenue out to the turnpike extension. Can they get it done by 2014? Somebody hurry up and make that call. Once they do get that open consider closing both northbound lanes at off hours and weekends because yes, the bridge needs to be saved because ferry boats would suck more than traffic jams.

Peter Genovese with The Star-Ledger loves the Pulaski Skyway

LOVES the Pulaski Skyway, or Skyway as he and others tell it. Take a few minutes this morning by following this here link and read Genovese's ode to a bridge we all use and he can't get enough of. We think you'll enjoy it.

After next year's Super Bowl the Pulaski Skyway will close for TWO YEARS!

That years not months and years plural. No official announcement has been made on this, that comes later but NBC 4 New York is saying a 1 billion dollar plan will be announced in Newark later today. A source told NBC4:

The 80-year-old bridge is "massively used, massively worn out," according to one transportation source, who declined to be named because local officials won't be briefed until Thursday morning.

Now if you travel to NYC via the Pulakski Skyway don't sleep on this info, this is the meat of it:

While rebuilding the Pulaski to last another 75 years will take several years, the part impacting New York-bound commuters will last about two years.

During that time, two of the bridge's four lanes will be redecked at a time, but only outbound traffic will be allowed, no matter which lanes are under construction, transportation sources said.

Got all that? After the Super Bowl no Pulaski for you!