In a letter to New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Council Member Joseph C. Borelli (R – South Shore), Congress Member Dan Donovan (R – SI, Brooklyn), Minority Leader Steven Matteo (R – Mid Island), Borough President James Oddo (R – Staten Island), and Assembly Member Ron Castorina (R – South Shore) expressed their concern about the behavior of officials in the town of Perth Amboy, NJ regarding the exclusion of New York State motorists from local roads during peak traffic.
Beginning during the summer traffic rush following the Fourth of July, New Yorkers returning to Staten Island and the other boroughs from New Jersey have experienced gridlock traffic and have run into the issue of local police and official resources being used to turn motorists from New York away from local highway exits to prevent them from accessing local roads in Perth Amboy. As Staten Islanders, we understand all too well how frustrating consistent, unabated traffic is to motorists and how debilitating it can be for local towns absorbing the overflow from interstates and other expressways. However, marshaling government resources to prevent people from one geographic area from accessing another is discriminatory, offensive, and creates unnecessary animosity between two areas which have historically collaborated and leveraged influence to resolve regional issues.
Borelli and his colleagues are requesting that Attorney General Schneiderman look into the legality of the actions taken by Perth Amboy and provide an opinion so that New York State elected and transportation officials can pursue a resolution that is amenable to Perth Amboy and fair to the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers utilizing state roads to travel between New York and New Jersey.