On Tuesday, May 20, I spent two and half hours listening to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority Commission discuss the state's $11-billion expansion of the Turnpike between the Newark-Bay Bridge and the Holland Tunnel.
As I listened my heart broke. Hours of testimony made it so clear that this project is a boondoggle for developers, construction unions, politicians and the auto industry, all of which are cheering it.
Phase one of the project doubles the width of the I-78 bridge bringing 38 percent more diesel trucks and 25 percent more cars into the region, based on the Turnpike Authority's own reports.
Phase two, three and four of the project call for the so-called Garden State to widen the eastern spur of the highway, which runs along the Greenville neighborhood just to the west of Liberty State Park.
It is an obvious waste of money. But beyond that, Greenville already suffers from the worst asthma rates in the city, so it's disturbing that many of the state's lawmakers and union leaders are so excited about the project. Mostly they celebrate the jobs that the project will supposedly create, but we've been here before: These temporary construction jobs are a poison pill for people who need good reliable jobs.
The hearing went down in a fashion that will be familiar to anyone who advocates for livable communities:
The first public comments came from Big Highway — unions, construction companies or other interest groups feeding at the trough — and their voices rang out like a chorus all reading from the same prayer book of talking points. Speaker after speaker said versions of this:
Martin Downes on behalf of one of New Jersey's largest heavy civil contractors. … We employ about a thousand employees, most of them New Jersey residents who live, work and raise families here in New Jersey. … I'm in strong support of the Newark Bay Hudson County Improvement Program. Let me be clear, this isn't just a transportation project. It's a jobs engine. This one project will generate around 25,000 jobs, and that's real paychecks for real people operating engineers, carpenters, laborers, electricians, ironworkers and engineers, men and women who make up the backbone of this construction industry.
Or this:
My name is Abby Adams. I am the government affairs director for the Associated Construction Contractors of New Jersey. ... The 25,000 jobs, $2 billion in labor wages and $2.8 billion in economic activity will be a positive force for New Jersey's economy and residents. ATCNJ is pleased to support this project and the many benefits we will see during construction and at its completion.
Fortunately, there were three times the number of public comments from people — normal residents of Bayonne, Hoboken, Jersey City, Newark and other affected communities — who opposed the construction. Here is what that sounded like:
Hi, my name is Dana Patton and I'm a resident of Jersey City near the Turnpike. My son goes to a school where debris from the Turnpike frequently actually blows into their playground. I want to be clear about what this really is: what I hear is people making a decision that profit them or their individual group [saying that's] more important than people's lives. … And for the union members, if your union doesn't care about your health, about your kid getting asthma, what kind of a union is that? I am very pro-union and I absolutely love unions. But if you're talking about making money on one job right now, when the future means that you're going to have lung cancer, or your kids are going to have, what kind of a choice is that? If we want to take money and invest in union jobs, I can tell you that there are a ton of schools all over New Jersey that are more than 150 years old, that are falling apart, and we send kids every day into them to breathe in mold and things that are unsafe.
Or take it from Jimmy Lee:
I've never heard anyone say they would love to live next to an eight-lane highway after the construction is finished.
Or from Dario Gutierrez:
My children go to school at PS 5, which is about 500 feet away from this Turnpike extension. … Many of the people who are moving to this area do not even own cars. And if they do, they don't commute by car. So the lobbyists’ assertions that growth necessitates the expansion of the Turnpike are completely insincere. I understand that the lobbyists want this [but] we can spend the $11 billion in a way that produces the same economic activity and results in the same union wages without expanding the Turnpike and damaging the environment, inducing demand, increasing congestion, the way that is proposed by this project. ... Please cancel this project.
Or Michael Aronoff:
Expanding the highway into neighborhoods and adding lanes is unnecessary for a number of reasons: First, traffic has gone down and the number of drivers from the population increase in North Jersey hasn't increased. So that has eliminated the necessity for widening the Turnpike. But second, we're not in a moment where we want to be applying yesterday's, failed urban planning models to the future of new Jersey.
I've lived in a lot of places — from El Paso to Denver to Detroit — and all of them have had neighborhoods, particularly Black and brown and lower-income neighborhoods, destroyed by turnpike expansion. North Jersey is no exception.
Or Stephanie Martinez:
We don't want another lane that will invite more toxic fumes into our lungs, into our children's lungs. The large population of individuals already suffering from respiratory diseases such as asthma. And, Mr. Diaz [she is referencing Turnpike commissioners here], would you approve a similar project to pollute your community in East Rutherford? What about you, Mr. DuPont, in Redbank? Or you, Mr. Reno? Would you want this pollution in Edison affecting the children? …. How about your township? My point is, y'all don't live here! But my community — Black and brown, working-class families — does. So you guys probably don't think you'll deal with the consequences. But I want you to really tap into your heart, and just feel what my friends living near this project will have to go through. … And what my family living not too far away from this project are going to be breathing with this environmentally racist project. I graduated from Saint Peter's, and they taught me to put community needs first.
No wonder my heart is broken.
