port authority

Two former state governors are quoted as saying that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) has been debased by politics in a report in Transportation Nation, a website of National Public Radio.  New York ex-governor Eliot Spitzer  (Dem 2007-08) says it has become "dominated by politics, not substance."

Friday August 19 was Capitulation Day at the Port Authority New York & New Jersey (PANYNJ).

The Port Authority NYNJ's press office hasn't been very responsive to requests for information lately so for a change we filed a "freedom of information" (FOI) request during the brouhaha over the big toll increase they proposed a week back. The two state governors claimed they were blindsided by the PANYNJ announcement but said they'd learned the reason was a threatened bond rating downgrade.

A day after the Port Authority NYNJ announced huge toll increases for September, after a panic over a threatened bond downgrade, the Governors of New York and New Jersey conferred Friday and agreed to block the PANYNJ plan. NY Gov Andrew Cuomo and NJ Gov Chris Christie issued a joint statement in which they referred to the PANYNJ toll increases as "indiscriminate and exorbitant."

Early June the PANYNJ was saying that a contract was imminent with its preferred new toll system contractor Electronic Transaction Consultants Corp (ETCC). And once that contract had been executed - "in a week or so" one official said -  they'd be free to answer questions about it. All would then be "transparent."

The nation's second biggest toll authority seems to be backing out of a decision May 25 by their Board of Commissioners construction committee to award a $81.9m contract to ETC Corp for replacing their toll system.

Port Authority New York New Jersey (PANYNJ) aka the Seagull has released renderings of a cable stayed design for a new Goethals Bridge. They show an edgy aesthetic of outwardly leaning upwardly bulging towers linked at the top with a sculpted crosspiece, the frames rising between separate roadway decks. There's an empty space in the middle - symbolic?

A perk for present and past employees of the Port Authority New York New Jersey (PANYNJ) has been criticized by the governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine. The Star Ledger newspaper reported the PANYNJ acknowledgement of the perk and the state governor's disapproval Monday.