[Picante Sauce Accent]The worst drivers are from New York City!!!
Git a Rope![/PSA]
No way are the worst drivers from New York. After living here all these years (and having lived for appreciable times in New York and New Jersey as well), I have no doubt that the worst drivers are in Massachusetts.
I remember that area once reeking like crazy, but I haven’t noticed it in the past few years. I’ll roll my windows down and not smell a thing. Actually, I kind of miss that smell. It reminds me of sitting in the back of my parents’ car as a kid on the way to visit my grandparents in the Bronx. Ah, nostalgia.
Something occurs to me.
Okay, so New Jersey has an ugly highway. Every fricking state has an ugly highway! That’s practically the definition of “highway”- ugly! Oh, and smelly, clogged, full of homicidal drivers on speed, etc. (To paraphrase Douglas Adams, “It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase ‘As pretty as a freeway’ appear.”)
So why does New Jersey get all the knocks, when I’m sure there are just as awful streches of road in Nebraska and Tennessee?
You are wrong about Nebraska and Tennessee and everywhere else. New Jersey, centered around the Port of Newark, is one of the busiest multi-modal transport regions in the world, and that is before you add the very heavy industry that is there.
I am pretty sure you won’t find highway interchanges with upwards of 40 toll booths to navigate everywhere either. It’s been a while since I got off the Turnpike at the Parkway, but that is a monster. One of many though within a radius of 30 miles.
I have to admit no such thing. I live in Jersey City, and I love it. Or maybe you were talking about Weehawken or Hoboken?
Hey, Hoboken is a nice town. The Water Front looks nice enough and having the Path and The Ferry over to the City is great.
Jersey City use to look bad, but now it is a wall of tall condos and Malls in the view and looks fine.
I can’t speak to Weehawken. I just don’t know.
…and let’s not forget Jersey City*. (where’s that puking smiley?)
However it’s widely known that New York has more lawyers per capita than any other state in the US. New Jersey has more nuclear power plants per capita than any other state in the US.
Do you know why that is?
New Jersey got to choose first!
HAA HAAA HAA 
- Actually I’ve never even been to Jersey City. A good friend of mine was from there and used to talk about what shit hole it was
I can speak to Weehawken, as I have lived there for over 10 years now. I own a lovely 100+ year old brownstone with stained glass windows in the entryway, great oak wood throughout, and a nice patch of backyard in which to grow my Jersey tomatoes. I am blocks from a breathtaking view of Manhattan, and I have the choice of a ferry, multiple bus lines, or a light rail for public transit if I do not choose to drive. There are restaurants and stores of all kinds around here (with especially fabulous Cuban food a few blocks over in Union City). Because the towns around here share services I have a huge fire department/ambulance/police force/library system at my disposal, and the tax burden is not too horrible (certainly lower than if I were in New York).
But really, you’d hate it here. Allow me to take the brunt of living here so you do not have to. No need to thank me.
No knock intended, I really don’t know anything about Weehawken but the ferry. I know Hoboken and Jersey City.
It’s getting close so I might as plug it: Jersey Dopefest the Fifth on Saturday June 13 at 2pm.
Actually, come to think of it, the jokes could be worse. I could be living in Arkansas.
ETA: No offense to Arkansasians.
The only thing I know about Weehawken is that I’m incapable of saying it any way other than like I’m jumping the General Lee over a washed-out bridge.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHawwwwwwwwwken!!
New Jersey:
- Longest, most unpleasant drive ever taken going into NJ - the smells, overpowering. The ride, unending, with all the stops to pay tolls
- We had a Jersey Girl living in our neighborhood for a while, and she was terrifying
- Every citizen who lives in a horrible area always, always defends it to the death with “yeah, but -” and lists some nice things about it. Same here, the horrendous inner city used to be the hub of the city decades ago 'well, it USED to be a very fine area, and look at all those beautiful old homes still here."
that’s the bad. The good:
- home of Bruce Springsteen
- best vacations of my childhood EVER took place at the Jersey Shore
- I visited a wealthy friend in the Great Gorge area, and it was just lovely
- I was born in a village that had a big smelly chemical plant, and driving through this village, it was like driving through downtown hell. People were astounded to find out that, outside of the main drag, away from the factory, our village contained some of the most beautiful, pricey mansions and estates, set back in the rolling hills behind gates and long driveways. I am sure NJ is no different!
I consider NJ one of the top places I’d love to live. Four seasons, arms-reach from NYC and Philly, lots of history, near wilderness, near mountains, near the coast, lots of genuine Main streets still exist . . . and on and on. I often find myself feeling very nostalgic for NJ, even though I can barely say I’ve been there. I think it’s from being too into Kevin Smith movies in the '90s.
Can someone link to pictures of the awful chemical row hell areas? I don’t remember them from driving from NJ to NYC, but I was a kid at the time.
The Pulasky Skyway has to be one of the ugliest drives in the country. It really lets you take in all the wonderous sights between the Holland Tunnel and Newark - chemical plants, refineries, shipping cranes, container yards, rail yards, giant industrial parking lots, warehouses and distribution centers, Newark Airport, the majestic natural glory of the Meadowlands.
I found it so quite funny to hear not_alice complaining about the NJ full-serve requirement, then saying something about how self-serve would be so much lower. This is funny only because the prices in New Jersey are among the lower prices in the country, comparable to the prices here in the Carolinas, and much lower than the prices in that bastion of self-serve freedom, California. :rolleyes:
Might I suggest not_alice not go to Oregon, btw. Same law there. 
Um, no. There are not. Sad to say, in this respect at least, New Jersey gets exactly what it deserves, especially since the amount of ugly highway as a percentage of the Turnpike in question is very large. :o
Arizona is full of absolutely gorgeous highways. So much so that they even inspired a magazine. Only a short stretch of the 10 and the 17 from its lower terminus until you get to north Phoenix (maybe 15 miles) are ugly, that I know of. And they aren’t hideous or anything, they just look kind of old. The rest are well-groomed, clean, landscaped, feature artistic walls and overpasses, or travel along beautiful scenery.
Also, the freeway I grew up on - Interstate 77 in central NC - was beautiful.
All this about no self serve gas in Jersey, I passed a Wawa on US 9, south of I-195, north of Lakewood yesterday that was advertising self serve gas. I didn’t stop, but I will definitely stop there next time I go by. Nothing I have seen elsewhere says that is legal here.
UncleBill
New New Jersey resident
The only thing uglier than the view from the Pulaski Skyway is the view of thePulaski Skyway. Good lord, is that thing a monstrosity!
I’m sure there are some exceptions, but every state has its ugly areas and hideous stretches of highway. But even I, the New Jersey cheerleader, will admit that we are tops in the ugly-stretch-of-highway department.
(Even though some perverse individuals such as myself enjoy the hideousness. But not the smell of Port Newark. Eww!)
This blind guy walks into a bar…