I-78 is scenic!?! Ha! - Revisited

On October 28, Mayor Mark Paradis of the Borough of Lebanon (Hunterdon County), left a comment on this blog about the Route I-78 Scenic Byway proposal.  You can take a look at his comment here - just scroll down past my post.

He fully admits that Alpha is NOT 'the only town that hasn't bought into this'.  The Township of Bridgewater and more recently, the Town of Phillipsburg have also opted out.  Why did Mayor Elaine Emiliani pontificate that we were?  Who knows?  Unfortunately, false statements like that only seem to further sully a reputation.  

I noticed that Mayor Paradis attended Phillipsburg Town Council Meetings with Mayor Emiliani to present their proposal.  Phillipsburg defeated the resolution by a 2-2 tie vote.  I found it quite odd that when they were offered a letter of support, they jumped on it.  When I tried to do the same with Mayor Emiliani at our meeting, she turned it down.  

Note to Mayor Paradis - You seem like a reasonable person and I would have hoped that you had attended our meeting.  Sending Mayor Emiliani alone was probably the absolute worst move.  I wish you all the best in your endeavors and I, too, look forward to hopefully working together in the future.

There may be a misunderstanding regarding the billboards issue, but all of the material that I have read prohibits billboards along a designated scenic byway.  If existing billboards are permitted to stay - great, but what about the applications that are in the pipeline and the revenue that comes along with them?  Gone, I'm afraid.

Unfortunately, I look at the issue realistically and not through the rose colored glasses that others do.  The negatives of this designation truly outweigh the positives.  We, as a region, need to look at our transportation infrastructure and not at the 'scenic' value of an interstate.  This area needs better highways and more mass transportation among other things and we need to start working towards solving those problems first.  When did the important issues take a backseat to a scenic byway designation?  This country and this state have major problems and when those are dealt with accordingly, then we can take another look at designating I-78 as a scenic byway.

Just pondering:  Oh, how I miss Mayor Debbie Pasquarelli...