Days of expanding highways are over until we fix N.J. roads, commish says

Acting transportation Commissioner Richard Hammer said the days of expanding interstate highways are over as the state focuses on fixing and rehabilitating existing roads and transit infrastructure, and finding funds to do the work. Hammer, who addressed the Alliance for Action’s annual transportation summit Tuesday for the first time after being nominated by Gov. Chris Christie… Read the rest of this entry »

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Christie Appoints Codey/Byrne Administrations Veteran to run the Department of Community Affairs

Governor Chris Christie has consistently thumbed his nose at New Jersey Republicans

Governor Chris Christie continued the transition of the Executive Branch of New Jersey’s State Government back to the Democratic Party today with his announcement that Charles A. Richman will become Acting Commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs on Friday when current Commissioner, Richard Constable, leaves government service after 13 years. Christie’s announcement said that Richman will be formally nominated to succeed Constable in the Commissioner’s post.

Richman, a career New Jersey bureaucrat with 40 years experience, served in the cabinets of Governor Brendan Byrne and Governor Richard Codey, on a acting basis.

Throughout his second term as Governor, Christie has appointed high profile Democrats to fill cabinet level and other important goverment positions when vacancies have occurred.

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O’Scanlon: Red Light Camera Corruption Warrants Investigations By Fishman, Wisniewski

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said today that he is asking U.S Attorney Paul Fishman to open criminal investigations into the municipal clients of Redflex Traffic Systems, an Arizona based red light camera company, due to legal claims by a former executive that the company routinely bribed municipal officials in 13 states, including New Jersey, in order to obtain the lucrative contracts to operate camera systems that issue summonses for red light infractions.

Additionally, O’Scanlon is writing to Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski to ask that the committee open an investigation into New Jersey’s red light camera program in light of the recent bribery allegations and scientific proof commissioned by O’Scanlon that red light cameras are a detriment to public safety that are rigged to cheat motorists.

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O’Scanlon is rallying public support to kill red light cameras

NJ101.5 photo

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, New Jersey’s most vocal advocate for the elimination of red light cameras, has taken to social media to rally public support for his quest to remove the devices that he has proven increase traffic accidents and are designed to rip off motorists from New Jersey intersections.

O’Scanlon has created an online petition at change.org that demands the New Jersey Department of Transportation end the red-light camera program in the State.  The petition can be found by clicking here.

On August 19, O’Scanlon provided video evidence to the press that red light camera operators shorten the required yellow light times at the intersections where the devices are installed in order to entrap motorists into running red lights and incurring fines that boost municipal revenue by upwards of $50 million dollars per year and put millions of dollars in the pockets of the companies that sell and service the red light cameras.

Backed up by Barnet Fagel, a traffic expert with the National Motorists Association and Attorney Joseph Santoli who discovered in a New York case that RLC companies were shaving yellow light times in order to entrap drivers into being caught on camera running a red, O’Scanlon said that shortened yellow lights cause more accidents and that “safety is being sacrificed” for municipal and RCL companies’ revenue.

Yellow lights are required to have either 3 or 4 second intervals, depending on the level of traffic and speed at the intersections.  Fagel conducted a study this weekend of 12 of the approximately 80 New Jersey RLC intersections.  All but “one or two” were found to have yellow lights that were between 1/10 and almost 3/10 of a second too short. Fagel presented the video evidence of his finding.

The most egregious of Fagel’s findings was in Jersey City at the intersection of Rt.1-9 and Sip Ave, a 4 second yellow light location.  Fagel’s video showed that the yellow light lasted only 3.753 seconds.

New Jersey’s Red Light Camera Program is a five year experiment that will expire in December of 2014 unless the legislature extends it.  O’Scanlon says there is already more than enough evidence to demonstrate that the program is a failure. RCL’s do not increase public safety.  On the contrary, they put lives at risk and serve no purpose other than to raise ill-gotten revenue for municipal governments and their unscrupulous vendors.

O’Scanlon has forwarded his findings to NJ DOT and hopes to enlist the support of at least 10,000 petition signers to pressure the DOT bureaucrats to end the program immediately.

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