HOBOKEN, N.J., Feb. 3 (UPI) -- In the movie "War of the Worlds" we witnessed the spectacular shredding of the venerable Bayonne Bridge in the neighborhood where Tom Cruise's character makes his home. To escape the alien destroyers, Cruise heads to Boston. What a ridiculous fantasy. In real life, alien attack or not, you can't get out of Bayonne, let alone New Jersey!
Peninsulas are the problem. Bayonne residents, surrounded on three sides by water, have no time to escape. Indeed, there are only four major ways out of the city and all its main streets lead to one of these escape portals. But to the north, there is a minor War of the Worlds every morning as traffic seeks entrance to the New Jersey Turnpike. Traveling ten blocks takes about 30-40 minutes, less than one mile per hour.
And, once out of Bayonne, where are you? In Jersey City. But this is part of the larger "peninsula" bordered by Newark Bay, the Hackensack River and the Hudson River. There is no escape through this route either. It takes well over half an hour to go from the Newport City area across the Holland Tunnel approach roads during any evening rush hour.
Now you are in Hoboken, which is part of the great Hudson-Bergen peninsula bounded on the west by the mighty (until River Edge) Hackensack River. Forget Hoboken. If you are there during rush hour, stay there, eat and drink. There is not one major road in or out of the place. To the west there are two street exits, to the north, two bridges close to each other. Of course you can go south, much easier, but you are back in Jersey City, heading toward Bayonne!
As waterfront communities, lower Jersey City and Hoboken are the first in a series of towns whose expanding populations are crushed in by the formidable barrier of the Palisades -- right up to Fort Lee. If aliens attack, how do you get over the Palisades? By the time we are done with redevelopment of the area as foreseen by the New Jersey Master Plan, there could be 100,000 new residents living in the zone. From the Exchange Place area of Jersey City to Fort Lee, there are only two handfuls of scraggly little cowpath roads running to the top of the cliffs (besides the Holland and Lincoln Tunnel escapeways west).
Obviously the master plan is flawed. Based on the assumption that New Jersey cities could refill themselves to World War II-era population levels, all sorts of towers of Babel have gone up along the Hudson River Gold Coast. The problem isn't just the increase in population; it's the vehicles the people bring with them. When Jersey City had 310,000 people, a large minority of families did not own a car. Nowadays every yuppie in the new developments seemingly has an SUV to contribute to massive traffic jams.
And you still want out of Bayonne?
With all these obstacle-vehicles everywhere, just try getting out of New Jersey during an alien attack. In case you haven't noticed, New Jersey is also peninsula-like, with only its northern boundary being passable by land.
Almost everywhere there is a traffic light you can count on massive rush hour delays.
Pick your favorite spots from Deepwater to Sussex, as some of my students did. In Sparts, at the intersection of West Mountain Road and county Route 517, the backup is one mile either side of the county road. In Rutherford, rush hour traffic on Route 3 moves at less than 10 miles per hour. A resident of Midland Park reports that traversing the town took five minutes 15 years ago; now it takes five minutes per cross-town light!
Just about every traffic-lighted intersection in once-suburban Bergen County will be clogged during rush hour or even on Saturdays. As the earth draws aliens like magnets, so traffic lights draw autos.
Let me suggest a disaster plot not even Spielberg would touch. Look east from peninsula New Jersey. Over there are some 7.6 million people on Long Island (including Brooklyn and Queens, oh yes), with only three connections to mainland peninsular Bronx. These Long Islanders and some 1.5 million more Manhattanites have a grand total of three exits to peninsula New Jersey.
We can't escape the aliens or any other emergency. Homeland Security Agencies, FEMA, County and Local Disaster planning groups: take notice. Peninsula New Jersey needs your full attention and generous funding to plan in-place disaster relief. Tom Cruise's movie character might make it to Boston, but for almost all of us, there is No Exit from New Jersey.
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(Silvio Laccetti is Professor of Social Sciences and Urban Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology, Castle Point Station, Hoboken, NJ, 07030. He can be reached there by mail or by email at [email protected])
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
