The New Jersey Turnpike is the 5th most-travelled highway in America and plays a major part in transportation throughout New Jersey. One reason the road was built was to take the interstate traffic off New Jersey's existing roads, which is why the highway was never landscaped. According to a letter that discusses Jersey's then-governer's intentions, "85 percent of the traffic at that time was estimated to be from out of state, why spend additional funds on landscaping?" Built between 1950 and 1952, the Turnpike was completed before the Interstate Highway System was even begun in 1956. The IHS was originally pushed by Eisenhower to provide for easier travel and increased national security--every so often, all lanes of a highway are used to help evacuate a city, generally in preparation for a hurricane. The IHS actually used the Turnpike, along with other major highways (such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike) as a model, which is especially interesting because out of the original plans for the IHS, every single road has either been cancelled or complete--except for Interstate 95, which features a discontinuity in New Jersey.
It is therefore not possible to drive the entire length of I-95 without interruption. Originally, I-95 was planned to run down where I-287 is now and parallel the Turnpike. Several factors contributed to the cancellation of this part of the road. Wealthy landowners in the Princeton area would have been displaced and therefore fought the project as a part of the Freeway Revolts (civilians protesting the construction of major roadways through their properties). The New Jersey Turnpike Authority would have lost revenue on the Turnpike is I-95 ran parallel, and therefore opposed this route for I-95 as well. Finally, Amtrak fought the project because they didn't want a new efficient road link between NYC and Philly, and the project was eventually scrapped. The two sections of I-95 currently exist about 10 miles apart from each other, so if you're driving northbound from PA it ends at US 1 in NJ, and turns into I-295 Southbound heading into Delaware. To continue on I-95 northbound, you have to go south on I-295 then east on I-195 and then take the Turnpike, which is also signed as I-95. In fact, disabled vehicle services on the Turnpike are obtained by dialing #95 on a cell phone, the way you dial #GSP (#447) on the Garden State Parkway.
This situation is scheduled to be fixed sometime in the 2010s when a new interchange is to be built, and I-95 is to be re-routed north of Philly to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and then to the main line of the New Jersey Turnpike, according to the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
About the Vote
Rather than directly voting for the President and VP, we vote for electors. This mean we vote for whatever party's ticket we want, and that party has chosen electors who are technically free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but actually vote for their party's candidates. Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its Senators and Representatives in Congress. The District of Columbia also has electors as if it were a state, but never more than the number held by the "least populous" state. Currently, there are 538 electors and the majority needed to win is 270.
Presidential campaigns therefore try to win the popular vote in a combination of states to get a majority of the electors, rather than the national popular vote. Most states award all of their electoral votes to the party that wins the popular vote, but Maine and Nebraska pick a single elector within each Congressional district rather than winner-take-all, and then its remaining two electors are awared based on the statewide popular vote. If neither candidate gets at least 270, the House of Representatives chooses the president. In the same way, the Senate chooses the VP in case of neither VP getting the 270 or more. Congress has seen many proposals to switch to a direct popular-vote for the presidency, but it has never passed.
There are several US presidential election decisions that could have been reversed by a small change in the popular vote within a state. Because of the electoral college, reverses would turn a narrow-margin win into a large-margin loss, or vice-versa. Examples of this include the 1876, 1916, 1976, and 2000 presidential elections. The closest election by electoral votes was 1876, where three states saw each party claim their candidate won the popular vote and the electoral college fought amongst itself before creating a special commission, comprised of 5 Senators, 5 Representatives, and 5 Justices of the Supreme Court (8 of these were Republicans, 7 Democrats). This committee called the Republican Hayes the president, but most historians believe that the Compromise of 1877 played a big part in the decision, allowing Hayes to be elected but in return Reconstruction would be effectively over in the South. The 2000 election was officially decided by 537 popular votes in Florida, and Gore would have won a large-margin victory if he had taken Florida.
Political parties choose their slate of electors in each state, and they generally select party members with a reputation for high loyalty to the party and its candidate. There are faithless electors, though, sometimes--members of the electoral college who do not vote for the candidate they have promised to. This has happened 158 times, but many of those times were because the candidate died before the elector could vote for them. Other times it may have been by accident that an elector voted for somebody else--in 2004, an anonymous Minnesota elector voted for John Edwards to be president (instead of John Kerry), and also voted Edwards to be VP. This was most likely an accident. There have been times, however, when the elector was acting with intent--twice an elector has abstained, most recently in 2000 to protest the way Washington D.C. is not a state. All the other times, an elector or group of electors has essentially boycotted the candidate they were supposed to vote for, but never has a faithless elector changed the outcome of an election. Although some states have outlawed faithless electors, none to date have ever been charged with a crime. Faithless electors do risk ostracism or retaliation from the party they belong to.
In 1860, 4 electors in New Jersey were supposed to vote for the Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, but instead they voted for Abraham Lincoln.
Presidential campaigns therefore try to win the popular vote in a combination of states to get a majority of the electors, rather than the national popular vote. Most states award all of their electoral votes to the party that wins the popular vote, but Maine and Nebraska pick a single elector within each Congressional district rather than winner-take-all, and then its remaining two electors are awared based on the statewide popular vote. If neither candidate gets at least 270, the House of Representatives chooses the president. In the same way, the Senate chooses the VP in case of neither VP getting the 270 or more. Congress has seen many proposals to switch to a direct popular-vote for the presidency, but it has never passed.
There are several US presidential election decisions that could have been reversed by a small change in the popular vote within a state. Because of the electoral college, reverses would turn a narrow-margin win into a large-margin loss, or vice-versa. Examples of this include the 1876, 1916, 1976, and 2000 presidential elections. The closest election by electoral votes was 1876, where three states saw each party claim their candidate won the popular vote and the electoral college fought amongst itself before creating a special commission, comprised of 5 Senators, 5 Representatives, and 5 Justices of the Supreme Court (8 of these were Republicans, 7 Democrats). This committee called the Republican Hayes the president, but most historians believe that the Compromise of 1877 played a big part in the decision, allowing Hayes to be elected but in return Reconstruction would be effectively over in the South. The 2000 election was officially decided by 537 popular votes in Florida, and Gore would have won a large-margin victory if he had taken Florida.
Political parties choose their slate of electors in each state, and they generally select party members with a reputation for high loyalty to the party and its candidate. There are faithless electors, though, sometimes--members of the electoral college who do not vote for the candidate they have promised to. This has happened 158 times, but many of those times were because the candidate died before the elector could vote for them. Other times it may have been by accident that an elector voted for somebody else--in 2004, an anonymous Minnesota elector voted for John Edwards to be president (instead of John Kerry), and also voted Edwards to be VP. This was most likely an accident. There have been times, however, when the elector was acting with intent--twice an elector has abstained, most recently in 2000 to protest the way Washington D.C. is not a state. All the other times, an elector or group of electors has essentially boycotted the candidate they were supposed to vote for, but never has a faithless elector changed the outcome of an election. Although some states have outlawed faithless electors, none to date have ever been charged with a crime. Faithless electors do risk ostracism or retaliation from the party they belong to.
In 1860, 4 electors in New Jersey were supposed to vote for the Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, but instead they voted for Abraham Lincoln.
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