Stronger vote, and voice, sought for South Jersey on Parkway

Last Updated on Tuesday, 07 February 2012 12:50 Written by Bill Barlow Tuesday, 07 February 2012 12:26

South Jersey state Sens. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Connors held a press conference Tuesday along the Garden State Parkway calling for a stronger voice for South Jersey when decisions are made about the road.

Still stinging from a pair of locally unpopular projects on the Garden State Parkway, two South Jersey state senators want a local voice on the Turnpike Authority.

Sens. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Connors, a Democrat and Republican, respectively, announced plans to introduce two bills, one to ensure someone from South Jersey sits on the Turnpike Authority’s seven-member board, which is dominated by representatives from North Jersey counties, and another to require the board hold at least two meetings a year in Ocean, Atlantic or Cape May counties. The proposal would be to circulate the meetings between those three counties. The monthly meetings are currently held in Woodbridge in Middlesex County.

Last year, two projects along the Garden State Parkway drew local criticism, and anger. A huge number of trees were cut down along the parkway, and in another, a security fence meant to deter potential terrorists was erected south of the Great Egg Harbor Toll Plaza, blocking access to the bridge leading over the bay between Somers Point and Beesleys Point.

In both cases, many locals derided the projects as unsightly and unneeded. The Cape May County Board of Freeholders went so far as to call for the removal of the barbed-wire-topped security fence, which was paid for with federal money as part of a $7 million project to protect major bridges.

“We have a bucolic, very scenic, very beautiful area. When you put up a fence that has the look of the perimeter fence of a penitentiary, people are going to notice,” Van Drew told a group of reporters gathered at a picnic area on the Parkway in Cape May County.

He did not go so far as to join the county government in calling for its removal, however.

He said he supports the freeholders, and added that he had been informed that the county freeholders supported his current effort, but he said he would not want to spend money on the removal, and said the fence should go to some area where the local residents felt it was needed.

Connors, who represents the 9^th district, which includes numerous Ocean County towns and Galloway Township and Port Republic in Atlantic County, is confident that he and Van Drew can get the bill through the senate and assembly and on to Gov. Chris Christie’s desk, even though North Jersey has a much larger population, and by extension, a lot more votes.

Connors promised to fight for the bill.
“There is a need for it,” he said.

The two men said they have not yet spoken to the governor about their bill, but that they will, and they said their working together on it was an example of bipartisanship. Van Drew suggested that Christie could see their efforts and appoint a representative from the southern end of the state the next time a seat is up.

More than half of the length of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Parkway are in South Jersey, they said.

“We need a vote and we need a seat at the table,” said Van Drew.

The authority’s seven-member board is appointed by the governor, with advice and consent of the senate, with the senate president and the speaker of the assembly each recommending one member. The commissioner of transportation is automatically a member. The current board does not include any South Jersey members, and one from a coastal community. The members are from Monmouth, Mercer, Middlesex and Bergen counties.