Gov. Chris Christie dismissed a question Monday about speculation that the closure of access lanes from Fort Lee to the George Washington bridge was political payback aimed the borough’s Democratic mayor.
“I worked the cones,” the governor joked in response to a reporter’s question, The Star-Ledger reported. “Unbeknownst to anyone, I was working the cones.”
The Port Authority’s closure of two out of three lanes from Fort Lee to the upper level led to claims that the agency was striking back at Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing the governor’s reelection bid. The closures surprised local officials and caused massive delays through Fort Lee in September.
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Christie told reporters he didn’t know three bridge access lanes were feeding Fort Lee traffic, but said the matter should be reviewed, according to a politickernj.com report.
“The fact that one town has three lanes dedicated to it, that kind of gets me sauced,” he said at an unrelated Trenton press conference.
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The governor also took a swipe at Assembly transportation committee chair John Wisniewski and state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, who have demanded answers from the Port Authority over the closures.
“Just because John Wisniewski and Loretta Weinberg are obsessed with this...it just shows you they really have nothing to do,” Christie said, according to The Star-Ledger.
Wisniewski subpoenaed Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye to testify Dec. 9 about the lane closures. Foye, who was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, ordered the lanes reopened in an angry email.
Christie’s top appointee at the Port Authority, Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, told the Assembly’s transportation committee last week that a traffic study was to blame and questioned the fairness of having three access lanes devoted to traffic from Fort Lee.
In an interview with The Star-Ledger, Weinberg reiterated her call that officials release the Port Authority’s purported traffic study.
“Despite a budget that exceeds that of more than half of the states in this country, the Port Authority has become an agency that operates with little accountability and no transparency,” Wisniewski said in a statement Monday. “It has lost sight of what it means to serve the public and I intend to continue my pursuit of the truth about this matter as well as the long list of other issues that have raised questions and concerns about the agency’s operations and management.”
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