State's Traffic Reporting is So Slow!

Yesterday, a suicidal man on he George Washington Bridge caused traffic delays up to two hours. Newsday reported that the man was "armed with a box-cutter razor climbed a bridge cable, slashed his arms and wrists repeatedly and threatened to jump," but police officers were able to talk him down. We wrote about New York bridge jumpers last month.

Interesting, Newsday was also the one to tell the NY State Department of Transportation about the GWB delays, because the state's Real Time Transportation Status website had no information about the delays. The DOT told Newsday, "Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication and we didn't realize it [the information] wasn't up until you called this morning. Normally, we would have had a traveler's advisory posted."

An extended explanation: The multi-million dollar website's links "between the metro-area traffic information system and the state Web site have not been completed" so that information has to be input by hand! That's so not an excuse - can't they listen to 1010 WINS and figure what's happening on one of the major arteries to the state's economic engine? Come on, Albany pork!