Traffic Controversy of Chris Christie

(12/26/2013) The bridge traffic controversy of Chris Christie (NJ's governor) just could not be distinguished. After reading the details of the whole event, I found it interesting. The controversy is Bill Baroni (deputy director of the Port Authority of New York and Jersey) and David Wildstein (then the director of interstate capital projects and an ally of Christie's) were accused to conduct a unapproved traffic study at the town of Fort Lee in September 2013 on a highway entrance to the George Washington Bridge. Two of three lanes of Fort Lee "to the George Washington Bridge had been closed, causing dangerous traffic jams in the borough on the first day of school." A potential reason of this traffic disaster was that the Mayer of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich (D), did not endorse Christie's reelection bid and the controversial part is "Neither he nor Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye -- who was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) -- were given any advance warning." And another development is that Mr. Baroni "acknowledged that no one ever sought approval for the study, which, without an alternative route, was guaranteed to create traffic congestion.... Wildstein and Baroni have since resigned and hired attorneys to represent them."

Definitely the person who caused the traffic disaster know Queuing theory very well. Highway traffic is one example of queuing management. The traffic of Fort Lee is extremely busy in the normal time since "the George Washington Bridge, which is the busiest bridge in the United States," which implies that the highway system at that part has been reached close to its system capacity (maybe close to 90 or 95 % utilization in this case). In a queuing system that it's utilization rate has reached close to its capacity, any cut in the capacity will make the highway utilization reach above 100%, which implies that traffic will be backlogged till the capacity increases or the demand diminishes. In this article, it says "On approximately 20 occasions in the last forty days, our Borough has been completely gridlocked," wrote Sokolich to Baroni, who was Christie's top official at the Port Authority. "Traveling from the south to the north end of our Borough takes upwards of one hour. Our safety vehicles are unable to traverse our own thoroughfares to attend to emergencies which place our residents in harms way."

(1/8/2014) In Chinese, we say "Paper cannot cover the fire." Now this scandal exploded in the Governor's office as emails revealed that Christie's administration is linked to the Bridge Traffic retaliation. Christie's trouble is far from over due to these potential lawsuits.