Christie the destroyer
The Bridgegate trial and the train crash in Hoboken highlighted in a single week how severely Gov. Chris Christie has damaged two of the region’s critical transportation agencies. Christie’s fecklessness in pursuit of national power has reduced the once-mighty Port Authority to a dispensary of political patronage and punishment and steadily crippled NJ-Transit.
Prosecutors opened the trial of two former Christie aides by claiming the governor knew about the plan to close George Washington Bridge entrance lanes as a way to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for failing to endorse Christie’s reelection.
One-time pal and enforcer David Wildstein testified that he told Christie about the lane closures as they were taking place, prompting high laughter at a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the World Trade Center.
Christie denies, denies, denies — and was apparently spared indictment because prosecutors could not show that he approved the plot beforehand. Whatever the fact, testimony starkly demonstrated his plundering of the PA.
Established to promote development of the New York-New Jersey port, the authority is ruled by the governors of both states and, in its heyday, was both imperious and populated by talented public servants.
The agency suffered a long, slow decline as New Jersey politicians increasingly saw it as the biggest pot of money available.
With the two states — particularly New Jersey — desperately needing better cross-Hudson transit, Christie siphoned funds for local pet projects.
Compounding the felony, Jersey members of the authority board wasted billions on a grandiose white marble WTC PATH station.
As a result, the PA has neither the funds nor the muscle to replace its outmoded Manhattan bus terminal.
Meanwhile, shoehorned into a highly paid position for which he was completely unqualified, Wildstein ran roughshod using the PA, as he put it, as a “goody bag” for rewarding politicians, including by, grotesquely, doling out mangled steel from the Twin Towers.
In the aftermath of the Hoboken crash, Christie’s NJTransit mess came to the fore.
He has starved the railroad of funding because the state is broke and he refuses, for example, to raise its far too low gasoline tax. He poses as a fiscal conservative, regardless of the consequences.
New Jersey’s governor appoints the entire NJTransit Board. The dysfunctional panel cancelled its monthly meetings in August and September — and has been unable to hire anyone to actually run the railroad.
After less than two years of service, Executive Director Ronnie Hakim resigned in 2015 to head New York City’s Transit Authority. The board found a replacement — but he quit before starting.
Thanks to term limits, Christie will leave the governorship in 16 months. It’s a shame that he can’t be railroaded before that.