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By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
When it comes to the overburdened mass-transit system, Governor Christie has been consistent, doing everything in his power to kill any attempt to expand it and speed the commute for hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents.
At the same time, he's refused to raise the state gasoline tax (10.5 cents per gallon) -- the second lowest in the nation -- to revitalize the trust fund that pays for road and mass-transit improvements.
Today, The Record reports Christie joined New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in announcing plans for heightened anti-terrorism measures, including more police at mass-transit hubs (A-6).
On Page 1, Columnist Charles Stile again sounds like he is in Christie's pocket, peddling the ficiton our GOP bully has "bipartisan credentials" to burnish (A-1).
Legislative ignorance
Meanwhile, even the majority Democrats in the New Jersey Legislature are afraid of proposing a higher gasoline tax as the price dips below $3 a gallon.
Staff Writer Christopher Maag should have led his story on a Trenton hearing with the ridiculous remarks of Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, D-Essex, a woman I have previously admired (A-3).
"...I'm worried about the average family with four kids and two SUVs that spends $140 a week filling up their tanks," Oliver is quoted as saying. "If the gas tax is increased, what's the impact on them?"
Oliver apparently knows nothing about cars, especially how SUVs use more gas and are not considered as safe as smaller vehicles, as well as how they contribute to climate change.
Any family concerned about high fuel costs certainly wouldn't own two of them, and would trade in at least one SUV on a far more fuel-efficient vehicle.
SUV owners also drive more aggressively and speed more than owners of smaller vehicles -- on the parkway and turnpike, they menace slower drivers -- and get away with it because of lax enforcement.
Page 1 today
The Times-like front page today holds little interest for residents of Hackensack and many other towns.
There is municipal news in the paper today as the Local section's assignment editors and reporters finally got to work on Wednesday.
But it's unclear what Staff Writer Todd South does between the Hackensack City Council meetings he has covered.
Just puzzling
The big photo on L-1 today shows a woman staring into her phone as two police officers survey the damage to a demolished Chevrolet Traverse in Ridgewood.
Staffer Tariq Zehawi didn't bother finding out whether the woman was given a summons or what caused the crash, and the Woodland Park newsroom apparently didn't care either.
The drive-by photo is another example of the trivial filler that has been used by the desperate Local editors for years.
Readers would prefer to see the talented photo staffs' enterprise work, even weather photos, than an endless procession of non-fatal crashes and rollovers and photo captions with no information.
Too little, too late
Many weeks after the start of utility work and other construction work on Route 46 in Little Ferry and local streets, what's the point of today's Road Warrior column (L-1)?
The only bit of useful advice from Staff Writer John Cichowski is buried:
Check the Web sites of PSE&G and municipalities for road and street closures.
A couple of paragraphs would have sufficed.
Second look
The Wednesday food page in Better Living is a far cry from the Wednesday food section Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded not long after he took over.
Now, Wednesday's BL-2 is largely devoted to promoting restaurants and local chefs, such as Adam Weiss of Due, a Ridgewood restaurant that received 3.5 out of 4 stars and a rare Page 1 promo from The Record last week.
In COFFEE WITH THE CHEF, Weiss, who is 37, talks about his love for Twix bars, salting pasta water "like the ocean" and molten chocolate cake.
If the paper's older readers followed his example, they would end up in the hospital.
The Record always provides a pronunciation guide to the name of the pricey restaurant, Due ("do-ay") lest some might think it rhymes with "doo" as in doo doo.
The pasta recipe from clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson on Wednesday's BL-2 includes a half-cup of artery clogging heavy cream and 4 ounces-plus of full-fat blue cheese.
Where do I throw up?
 |
| NJ Transit adds cars to its trains to handle increased ridership, but many platforms are too short to accommodate them, such as this one in New Brunswick. |
 |
| If police are going to search commuters' bags, that would worsen an already agonizingly slow commute on weekday afternoons for North Jersey residents who catch buses at the Port Authority's antiquated midtown Manhattan bus terminal, above. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
When it comes to the overburdened mass-transit system, Governor Christie has been consistent, doing everything in his power to kill any attempt to expand it and speed the commute for hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents.
At the same time, he's refused to raise the state gasoline tax (10.5 cents per gallon) -- the second lowest in the nation -- to revitalize the trust fund that pays for road and mass-transit improvements.
Today, The Record reports Christie joined New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in announcing plans for heightened anti-terrorism measures, including more police at mass-transit hubs (A-6).
On Page 1, Columnist Charles Stile again sounds like he is in Christie's pocket, peddling the ficiton our GOP bully has "bipartisan credentials" to burnish (A-1).
Legislative ignorance
Meanwhile, even the majority Democrats in the New Jersey Legislature are afraid of proposing a higher gasoline tax as the price dips below $3 a gallon.
Staff Writer Christopher Maag should have led his story on a Trenton hearing with the ridiculous remarks of Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, D-Essex, a woman I have previously admired (A-3).
"...I'm worried about the average family with four kids and two SUVs that spends $140 a week filling up their tanks," Oliver is quoted as saying. "If the gas tax is increased, what's the impact on them?"
Oliver apparently knows nothing about cars, especially how SUVs use more gas and are not considered as safe as smaller vehicles, as well as how they contribute to climate change.
Any family concerned about high fuel costs certainly wouldn't own two of them, and would trade in at least one SUV on a far more fuel-efficient vehicle.
SUV owners also drive more aggressively and speed more than owners of smaller vehicles -- on the parkway and turnpike, they menace slower drivers -- and get away with it because of lax enforcement.
Page 1 today
The Times-like front page today holds little interest for residents of Hackensack and many other towns.
There is municipal news in the paper today as the Local section's assignment editors and reporters finally got to work on Wednesday.
But it's unclear what Staff Writer Todd South does between the Hackensack City Council meetings he has covered.
Just puzzling
The big photo on L-1 today shows a woman staring into her phone as two police officers survey the damage to a demolished Chevrolet Traverse in Ridgewood.
Staffer Tariq Zehawi didn't bother finding out whether the woman was given a summons or what caused the crash, and the Woodland Park newsroom apparently didn't care either.
The drive-by photo is another example of the trivial filler that has been used by the desperate Local editors for years.
Readers would prefer to see the talented photo staffs' enterprise work, even weather photos, than an endless procession of non-fatal crashes and rollovers and photo captions with no information.
Too little, too late
Many weeks after the start of utility work and other construction work on Route 46 in Little Ferry and local streets, what's the point of today's Road Warrior column (L-1)?
The only bit of useful advice from Staff Writer John Cichowski is buried:
Check the Web sites of PSE&G and municipalities for road and street closures.
A couple of paragraphs would have sufficed.
Second look
The Wednesday food page in Better Living is a far cry from the Wednesday food section Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded not long after he took over.
Now, Wednesday's BL-2 is largely devoted to promoting restaurants and local chefs, such as Adam Weiss of Due, a Ridgewood restaurant that received 3.5 out of 4 stars and a rare Page 1 promo from The Record last week.
In COFFEE WITH THE CHEF, Weiss, who is 37, talks about his love for Twix bars, salting pasta water "like the ocean" and molten chocolate cake.
If the paper's older readers followed his example, they would end up in the hospital.
The Record always provides a pronunciation guide to the name of the pricey restaurant, Due ("do-ay") lest some might think it rhymes with "doo" as in doo doo.
The pasta recipe from clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson on Wednesday's BL-2 includes a half-cup of artery clogging heavy cream and 4 ounces-plus of full-fat blue cheese.
Where do I throw up?
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