Hmmm… A couple of highly paid assistants, a few dozen runs to Starbucks and lobster lunches on the state credit card, or any number of other executive level perks vs. public toilets for taxpayers and tourists who spend money in the state plus firing a bunch of low paid workers who really need paychecks. Yup. The choice is obvious.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wants to shut the last two rest-stop bathrooms on non-toll roads in the most densely populated U.S. state after this year to save $270,000.
“We just don’t have the money for the bathroom facilities,” Christie’s transportation commissioner, James Simpson, told members of the Senate Budget and Appropriations committee today during a hearing on his department’s $1.24 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
[...]
The closings will eliminate 18 maintenance positions, according to the department’s written response to questions from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.
[...]
Christie, a Republican who took office Jan. 19, last month proposed a $29.3 billion budget that includes $10 billion of spending reductions to help close a $10.7 billion deficit.
Found by Mr. Kevin
Let private industry take care of public toilets.
$1.00 to urinate
$5.00 to defacate
$10.00 to change your baby
$20.00 to vomit
For confused foreigners, a “public toilet” is a state run lavatory. These are placed along side of public highways in places known as “rest stops”. These are often nearby lonely and isolated places used by serial killers to dispose of their victims. Hence the name, rest stop.
I drove across AZ last week and noticed that state had closed all of theirs.
As someone who actually lives in NJ I can say its about time someone tried to clean up the mess this state has become.
I also went to a pretty well regarded HS and all these teachers that are supposedly “knowledgeable” are uninterested in anything that stops them from going through the motions of the class they’ve taught for the last 20 years. Most of them have no interest or concern for their students. Let them get a job where they have to work 12 months out of the year.
#23. isn’t that a long way to go to take a leak?
NJ is going down!!!! Economically…. The dollar is going down because of NJ!…. OOOHHHH!
It’s is the same as the doom scenario of Grece and the Euro.
What is going on with the woooorld?
California along hwy 5, which runs in a straight line for 1,000 miles down the state has closed a lot of ‘rest stops’
No worries! up here in Northern California, we just pull over and urinate into the canal that feeds our ‘water’ to LA.
We’ve had many people take a dump in the confessional booth.
Liberal Uncle Dave just can’t resist conservative bashing. The papers here in Jersey do the same…spinning every single thing Christie does to cut OUTRAGEOUS spending in this state, into some kind of heartless act of evil and callousness. The state was ridden into the ground by Corzine and Company…the liberal democrat nearly bankrupted the state with his idiotic policies, corruption. Where were the newspapers THEN? Where was all the great reporting then? When the budgets skyrocketed, corruption was everywhere, and NJ Govt. resembled a crime syndicate? Where were all the bleeding heart liberals crying out for justice? They were turning a blind eye, just like they did in California, and many other states, the Liberal run newspapers didnt care what Corzine did, now that we have an honest, hardworking, no nonsense guy like Christie, who is not afraid of making tough decisions to save the state, they bash him every single day, in every newspaper. I would fall down in shock if I ever read a headline praising Christies bravery, and unwavering resolution. They will never do that, because it fits nicely with their agendas to bash fiscal conservatism, because we all know, conservatism wont line these scumbags pockets the way they want.
I travel through and work in NJ just about every week. I have seen a few of these rest stops that are to be closed down. Most are not in isolated ares. In fact that majority are within an exit or two of a sheetz or wawa.
They should just do what they have done with the turnpike. Hand over maintenance of them to private industry.
They can be required to keep the restroom open 24 hours, provide at least the same level of security as before, and take care of cleaning and maintenance of the property. In return the company gets free rent and prime location just to the side of the interstate.
Of course you wouldn’t make anything of them, but you wouldn’t be losing money on them either.
The US is rising from affluence to poverty
#12 “$15,000 a year for a state employee!! THAT’S OUTRAGEOUS!!!!”
I bet they are all UNDOCUMENTED and just trying to help their family too.
I drove through Arizona a few weeks ago. Most of the rest areas were closed. “So what?” you might ask? Well, Arizona is a thinly populated state outside of Tucson, Phoenix, Kingman, and Flagstaff. Many interchanges just lead to ranches. There’s literally nowhere to make a pit stop on long stretches of Interstate.
New Mexico, where I live, has the same rest area financial problem, and the State is now proposing that several existing rest areas be closed. Again, nowhere to go for miles, except for a few filling stations.
#19 is right. Since Christie took over my property taxes went up over 100 dollars/month.
So much for not raising taxes.
Christie’s administration’s staff pay has risen more than this “thrift” saves.
I think the gov’t should maintain the roads and deliver the mail .
#36,
If you think that rest stops aren’t neccessary to a well-operated and safe road, you are as dumb as the rest of the Right.
No, 37, I think rest stops are an important, even essential part of travel. I ain’t no ignorant Commie, are you?
#38,
My mistake, I thought you were for this action. I misunderstood your thrust, as I sometimes mistake sincerity for sarcasm. Sorry.
The former governor of New Jersey knew the value of a good rest stop. In Jim McGreevey’s memoir he wrote, about rest stops.
From Wikipedia, “In The Confession, McGreevey described the duality of his life before he came out as gay: ‘As glorious and meaningful as it would have been to have a loving and sound sexual experience with another man, I knew I’d have to undo my happiness step by step as I began chasing my dream of a public career and the kind of ‘acceptable’ life that went with it. So, instead, I settled for the detached anonymity of bookstores and rest stops – a compromise, but one that was wholly unfulfilling and morally unsatisfactory.’”