Chris Christie cannot bear to acknowledge the grim reality about N.J. Transit, which has become a national punch line on his watch, so he has anointed himself the cockeyed arbiter of history.
Consider the piffle he peddled Sunday to the New York Times:
"This idea that, 'Oh, New Jersey Transit has been starved' -- we had one big accident with, tragically, one person died because a guy had sleep apnea," the outgoing governor said, referring to the Hoboken tragedy of Sept. 29, 2016.
"And then this becomes like New Jersey Transit is falling apart. Before that you never heard anything about New Jersey Transit falling apart. Pre- that accident, you go back and look at the clips, there was not any big discussion about New Jersey Transit being in some crisis. It's not in a crisis."
Such assertions deserve a high position in Christie's pantheon of terminological inexactitudes (lies), which admittedly is very top-heavy.
But the fears and forebodings about the country's third-largest commuter rail system was well-documented many years prior to Hoboken, and the deterioration of the once-proud carrier is a monumental insult to the memory of its founder, Brendan Byrne.
Because if you didn't know NJT was in a crisis prior to the Hoboken tragedy, you simply weren't paying attention, or you were preoccupied with filling NJT executive slots with political cronies who didn't belong there.
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To wit:
October 2012 - 261 out of 1,162 rail cars were damaged along with 63 of 203 locomotives when NJT failed to move equipment to safety in preparation for Sandy. Estimated loss: $120 million.
February 2014 - NJT posts its worst month for on-time performance in 18 years.
April 2015 - Transportation commissioner Jamie Fox tells a Senate Committee, "We're in a crisis. The sword isn't hanging over the legislature, it's hanging over the people who rely on transportation."
July 2015 - NJ Transit Board approves a 9 percent fare hike - the fifth since 2000.
July 2015 - Meanwhile, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx calls the lack of proactive leadership in repairing the Hudson Tunnels "almost criminal."
March 2016 - NJ Advance Media reports that NJ Transit trains are breaking down at an alarming rate - one-third below their 2012 performances, and not even half as efficient as LIRR trains.
August 2016 - The Federal Railroad Administration reports 45 percent of all rail accidents in New Jersey over the three previous years involved NJ Transit - and that included PATH, Amtrak and six other rail operators.
September 2016 - Tri-State Transportation Campaign reports that the capital budget has been reduced by an average of $416 million between 2012 and 2016 to cover the operating budget shortfall.
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Just a small slather of Christie's pre-Hoboken mismanagement.
The troubling part is that he pretends he cannot see the tangled mess he leaves behind, after managing NJ Transit like a reckless vandal who nourished himself on patronage and indifference.
"Today, there are 409 job vacancies of critical operations that weren't there at the end of fiscal '14," Sen. Robert Gordon (D-Bergen) said Monday. "There are 230 cars in the maintenance yard, some with doors that open while the train is in motion. And it has the worst on-time and safety record for any major mass transit system in the country.
"And we're not in a crisis? Hello?"
Indeed, a tough slog lies ahead, and Hoboken must always be a lesson learned and re-learned. But every bureaucratic bungle that led to it will always manifest Chris Christie's transportation legacy.
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