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Thursday, August 19, 2004
Why bother? 
| | We drove last night from one end of Long Island to the other — Montauk to Brooklyn, stopping for dinner with friends in Bridgehampton. We began the long last stretch around 10pm, aiming for Newark Airport in New Jersey. We went late in the evening to avoid traffic, but you never know, so I stayed tuned to WCBS/880 and WINS/1010, New York's two news stations, which both broadcast frequent traffic reports. |
| | We took 27 West to the Southern Parkway, then the Belt Parkway around Brooklyn to the Verazzano Narrows Bridge, which charges $8 for passage to Staten Island. |
| | All the way, the radio stations said our path was clear. They reported no delays on any of New York's bridges and tunnels, with only a few brief tie-ups here and there. |
| | But when we got to the other side of Staten Island, the Goethals Bridge was closed, as it apparently is every night from 9:30pm to 5:00am for road work. In other words, the main route — or, as we say in New Jersey, the fucking interstate! was closed. Cerrado. Geschlossen. If you're not familiar with the territory, or lack a map, you're fucking SOL. |
| | Which is fine, given the need to fix bridges, but why nothing about the closure on the radio? |
| | So I'm sitting there, pulled over to the side of the road, listening to the chirpy traffic on WCBS and WINS thinking, Excuse Me? The Goethals isn't a fucking BRIDGE? The main road between Staten Island/Brooklyn and New Jersey doesn't fucking matter? Why say nothing about it? How long does it take to say "The Goethals Bridge is closed until 5am, so take 440 North or South"? Does the fact that it's a scheduled closing make it an irrelevant piece of information? Are the only listeners worth the label those who already know this information? AAARRG. |
| | Fortunately, we had a map and found our way to 440 North off the Island, through Bayonne (ugly as I remember it 40 years ago), up to the Turnpike and over to the Best Western in which I type this now, at 2am, over wi-fi provided, incongruously, by an otherwise dumpy motel. |
| | And now we fly home. See ya on the West Side. |
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