subscribe to this pageMore than half of commuter vans towed after inspections
by Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal Tuesday September 23, 2008, 3:02 PM
The Hudson County Prosecutor's Office towed 15 of 27 jitneys pulled over today in West New York, part of a continuing campaign to enforce safety laws that officials concede is having little impact.
"It still seems that there is a lack of compliance here and as far as our office is concerned, we are going to move forward and protect the citizens of Hudson County by conducting more of these stops to enforce the law," said Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Zevits.
Surprise inspections began at about 7 a.m. at 59th Street off Bergenline Avenue.
About 151 safety violation were cited during the inspections, by the state Motor Vehicle Commission Commercial Bus Unit, West New York police, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office and the Hudson County Sheriff's Office, Zevits said. Police also issued 35 motor vehicle tickets, Zevits said.
Safety violations included bad brakes, cracked frames, fuel leaks and safety equipment violations including bad windows and missing fire extinguishers, Zevits said. Motor vehicle summonses were issued for uninsured vehicles, expired drivers licenses and failure to produce medical cards, Zevits said.
West New York resident Santos Mercedes said he doesn't understand why police pulled him over and inspect his van when he had a good inspection sticker and his paperwork is in order.
"I was just driving on Bergenline around 7:50 a.m. and I was stopped by a policeman and I gave him my license and registration and everything was up to date," Mercedes said. "I had in my bus like 25 passengers and he made me take out all my passengers in the middle of street. They have to go to work. Maybe some of them will lose their jobs."
Mercedes said that in the end, he was allowed to drive away with no citations, adding that last month his van was towed at a cost of $850.
The Prosecutor's Office's Insurance Fraud Unit has conducted more than a dozen surprise inspections of commuter vans in Hudson County over the past two years.
September 7, 2008
Battlefield Latest Holdup for Rail Line
By COLEEN DEE BERRY
MANALAPAN
WHEN prosperous central New Jersey farmers built the Freehold-Jamesburg Agricultural Railroad in the early 1850s, little did they suspect they would be laying the ground for a controversy a century and a half later.
The rail line the farmers created to transport crops ran straight through the heart of one of the largest American Revolution battlefields. On June 28, 1778, George Washington's Continental Army fought the British to what many historians consider a draw in what later became known as the Battle of Monmouth.
When the farmers built their railroad about 75 years later smack through the site of the old battlefield, no one objected.
"In the 1850s the farmers were most concerned about getting their crops to New York City, not with preserving a battlefield," said James T. Raleigh, president of the Friends of Monmouth Battlefield.
Now, that same rail line seems to be an ideal location for a new commuter rail plan to serve parts of central New Jersey, an idea that officials from Monmouth and Ocean Counties have been promoting. The problem is, the old battlefield was granted National Landmark status in 1966, and New Jersey and National Park Service officials object to the line running through the historic site.
...
The battlefield objection is the latest in a long line of roadblocks to the Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex rail line, often called the MOM line. Proponents contend that the passenger line is needed to ease congestion in the Route 9 corridor.
Latest Plan for Corzine to Consider: Private Lanes on the Turnpike
By NATE SCHWEBER
Published: July 9, 2008
First, Gov. Jon S. Corzine all but offered to lease the New Jersey Turnpike to the highest bidder. Then he floated the bizarre bureaucratic notion of creating a public benefit corporation so the taxpaying public could, essentially, become a private entity and operate the turnpike and other highways (which are now run by a different quasi-public agency).
He proposed an 800 percent toll increase to pay for the state's aging roads and draw down half of its more than $30 billion in debt.
Now, after all those ideas have been shot down, Mr. Corzine is considering a new prospect for financing critical infrastructure and reducing congestion on the road: Privatize individual lanes.
"It does make you wonder what's next," said Jon Shure, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonprofit research organization.
On Monday, the State Senate president, Richard J. Codey, a Democrat of Essex County, unveiled his proposal for a private company to build an extension on the turnpike from Exit 8A to Exit 6 and on the Garden State Parkway from Exit 82 down to an exit in the 30s for drivers willing to pay extra to avoid traffic.
At the same time, State Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, a Democrat from Union County who is chairman of the Economic Growth Committee, offered his own twist, suggesting that the new lanes be reserved for buses and trucks.
New Jersey
Turbans Make Targets, Some Sikhs Find
June 1, 2008
In the Region | New Jersey
A Rail Line Generates New Life
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
HERE is what light rail has delivered to five formerly down-at-heels neighborhoods along the 20.6-mile system in northern New Jersey: more than 10,000 units of new housing, with a total property value surpassing $5 billion.
The opening and continued expansion of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system from 2000 to 2006 have greatly affected all 23 stops on the north-south line running through seven municipalities.
According to a new study from the Voorhees Transportation Center of Rutgers University, some station sites have already been reshaped by development; others are poised for the same treatment.
The detailed study focused especially on five of the station areas - those that researchers considered to have the most potential for development. They are Port Imperial in Weehawken; Ninth Street in Hoboken; the area between the Essex Street and Jersey Avenue stations in Jersey City; the Bergenline Avenue neighborhood of Union City and West New York; and the 34th Street area in Bayonne.
With the dollar falling and the economy in Brazil booming, Brazilian immigrants in the United States are returning home by the thousands. Dan Grech reports.
Up to 10,000 Brazilian immigrants in Boston -- many of them here illegally -- are expected to follow Benicio home this year. Brazilian strongholds in New Jersey and South Florida are seeing a similar exodus.
Many immigrants say they are leaving because they feel lonely and afraid as local sentiment has turned against illegal immigrants and, for the first time in decades, these Brazilians have a viable alternative back home: a robust economy with plenty of jobs.
Posted on: Wednesday, 23 May 2007, 15:00 CDT
By DAVID A. MICHAELS, STAFF WRITER
A minibus company that began as an informal service catering to immigrants in Passaic County now carries more commuters between Paterson and New York than NJ Transit.
While critics have scoffed at the worn-out appearance of some minibuses, riders praise the Spanish Transportation company for its inexpensive and frequent service.
Even state transportation officials acknowledged that Spanish Transportation has evolved into an essential commuter service for a growing region that demands more mass transit than the state can supply.
"Our elected officials have realized the services we provide to the cities are a necessity," said Norberto Curitomai, the founder and president of Spanish Transportation. "We provide a quality public transportation, at lower rates that is maybe not provided by New Jersey Transit."
...
Curitomai's drivers make express trips in about 45 minutes compared with an hour or more on NJ Transit's long, winding circuits. His buses carry an estimated 30,000 daily passenger trips, Curitomai said.
Yet his success hasn't hurt NJ Transit's Paterson business. The state agency's revenue grew 18 percent between 2002 and 2006.
Source: The Bergen Record
About the Film:
Long overshadowed by its close proximity to New York City, the treasures and history of Newark, NJ have remained hidden to many of the citizens of New Jersey and the region. A new documentary film, The Once and Future Newark, debuted in the Fall of 2006. Produced by Rutgers University in Newark, the film features a number of city sites, as a group tour is hosted by Rutgers History Professor Clement Price, a celebrated scholar of Newark and New Jersey history. Part travelogue, part documentary and part history lesson, the film engages viewers' interest for personal exploration and discovery of the city. The locations included in the film were chosen for their broad cultural, social and historical significance. Price's great personal warmth, his affection for the city, and his profound feeling for Newark's fascinating interface of cultures, races and ethnicities, and religions makes this a personal and engaging film.
New Idea for the Turnpike: Let the Pension Fund Run It
By DAVID W. CHEN and KEN BELSON
TRENTON, Feb. 27 - With legislators lining up against the possibility of leasing the New Jersey Turnpike to a private company, New Jersey lawmakers are now considering another option: having the state pension fund run the Turnpike Authority's operation.
Legislators said Tuesday that they had had discussions with Gov. Jon S. Corzine and other officials about the unorthodox solution to the state's financial difficulties, but they said the idea was only in a preliminary stage.
N.J. plan for affordable housing is invalid
An appeals court ruled that the plan is unfair and based on flawed data.
By Troy Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer
A New Jersey appeals court threw out the state's plan for providing affordable housing to the poor yesterday, calling elements of the blueprint discriminatory and based on flawed data.
The court gave the Council on Affordable Housing, the agency that sets the state's rules, just six months to devise a new plan.
While housing advocates applauded the court's ruling, the decision means even more delays in the long-standing fight over the obligation that towns have to provide homes for low-income families.
The appellate court threw out a plan that was devised in 2004, five years after the previous plan expired.
November 4, 2006
A Town Divided Over a Fence
By JILL P. CAPUZZO
While most of the 500 families who bought into the concept of a tightly knit neighborhood, public parks and “Main Street” shopping have been pleased with the outcome, some are starting to feel constrained by the rules governing the 400-acre Town Center. It was New Jersey’s first designated town center and was created along the lines of Celebration, Fla., the Disney-designed mixed-use community outside Orlando that set the standard for such places.
...
But despite the festive spirit of the town’s fifth birthday on Oct. 15, one issue that continues to cause unrest is fencing, and the benefits of wood versus vinyl.
To create a hometown feel, design guidelines for Town Center included things like old-fashioned front porches, houses painted in muted historic colors and white wooden fences. Within a short time, however, the wooden fences installed by the builders, the Sharbell Development Corporation, needed painting, and repainting.
With reduced maintenance being a prime reason homeowners chose to move to Town Center — where the yards are less than a quarter the size of those in neighboring communities — the wooden fences quickly became a problem. And when it was discovered that the backyard fences were made of pine rather than cedar and that year-old fences were starting to warp and rot, the battle began in earnest.
Critics said the compromise proposal would not go far enough to curtail abuse. Builders and municipalities lauded the bill, which a sponsor expects will pass.
By Elisa Ung
Inquirer Trenton Bureau
TRENTON - After a four-month review of how the most densely populated state allows the seizure of land for private redevelopment, key Democratic lawmakers are working on legislation that would tighten the criteria for exercising eminent domain and require more public notification. Builders and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities cheered the proposal, while property owners, Republicans, and the state's public advocate said it did not go far enough to curb eminent-domain abuse. "The real question is: What will this do to stop the abuse taking place now? And the answer is: Nothing," said Bill Potter, a Princeton lawyer who heads the Coalition Against Eminent Domain Abuse. ...