Our bus/rail nightmare must be fixed! New Jersey roads in Northern and Central Jersey are becoming parking lots during rush hour.

This is a normal occurrence for many commuters and it gets even worse if there is an accident, road construction project or other roadway problem(s). Most people think that one of the biggest fixes is to widen or build more roads. Well guess what, that is not the answer!

I am not going to sugarcoat the answer at all. The driving public has to give up their cars and use public transportation. Yea I know there is no good public or even private transportation where I live nor can it take me there directly or at all.

And that is one of the biggest problems her in New Jersey. Without a transportation system to take us where we need to go you the commuter is forced to drive yourself to work.

Now who is to blame for this transportation nightmare? In my opinion it is the legislature and the Governor. The legislature has done nothing but take our money and built their pet projects that few actually use. For example the River line, this is a trolley line that takes people from Camden to Trenton. It has low ridership numbers and is a crime ridden place to be. Well the biggest of the supporters in the state senate was Senator C. William Haines. He can be called the father of this poorly planned venture. Former NJ Transit executive director George Warrington has described the River Line as “the poster child for how not to plan and make decisions about a transit investment.”

What we need is a comprehensive transportation plan that can efficiently get commuters from their homes to work. Lacking such a plan we can only expect a mishmash of pet projects that do nothing for the majority and are a waist of taxpayer money.

So now that I have put some blame on the legislature what has the governor have to do with this transportation nightmare? Chris Christie has within his power as one of the most powerful governors in the United States to have the public entity, New Jersey Transit, do the proper legwork to discover what rail/bus projects are needed to give the riding public what they need.

Well guess what! Our governor just talks about how he wants to fix our state’s drug problems and ignores the very real fact that our transportation network is a piece of garbage. For instance to get from Kendall Park to Trenton you have to ride a Suburban bus to Princeton and then transfer to New Jersey Transit to get to Trenton. If I want to get to New York City I can take one bus to the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan, but if I want to go directly to Sea Bright I am just plain out of luck! I have to go to New Brunswick and get a bus from there. That is very strange since the route that the bus goes does not go east, but northeast. This is a much longer route than if I drove in a private car.

The East-West transportation network is very poor and when you get into southern Jersey it is just plan bad. So Governor and Legislators don’t you think that it is high time to put a spotlight on this transportation nightmare?

That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike