New Jersey state troopers keep order as motorists line up to purchase gasoline Sunday at the Thomas A. Edison service area on the New Jersey Turnpike.(Photo: Mel Evans, AP)
The gas rationing system imposed by Gov. Chris Christie won some
credit from New Jersey motorists and police Monday as residents went
back to work in big numbers for the first time since Superstorm Sandy
blasted the state last week.
"The lines are tremendously
shorter,'' said West Orange police Sgt. Robert Cosentino, who was one
of several officers stationed at a local BP station.
The station
had opened at 6 a.m., and after selling nearly 8,600 gallons of gas,
finally ran out in the early afternoon, said station manager Mike Cumur.
Though some motorists had waited hours last week to fill up, Cumur said
the wait on Monday was between 15 and 20 minutes.
Under the
rationing system, motorists whose license plates end with an even number
fill up on even-numbered days, and the opposite is true for those whose
plates end with an odd number. When the new rule first kicked in,
"people were a little nasty,'' Cumur says. "But now they know. ... It
was a lot of help.''
Tanisha Prescod, of East Orange, has dealt
with the region's ebbing gas flow firsthand. She has tried to fill up
four times since Sandy hit.
"My first time I attempted to gas up,
they threw me out of the line,'' said Prescod, who drives 30 miles
round trip to work. "They said no more gas. That morning, my car cut
off. I had to get somebody to push me all the way back to my house.''
Then,
two days ago, Prescod waited in line three hours to get gas. Monday was
different. She spotted a line at a West Orange Citgo station that
stretched only halfway around the block. "I see the line and (I think)
I'm going to take advantage of this,'' Prescod said. Looking at the
odd/even rule, "I think it does make sense.''
Some gas station
owners were still frustrated, said Sal Risalvato, executive director of
the New Jersey Gasoline-C-Store-Automotive Association, which represents
1,500 stations in the state.
The rationing, he said, "probably
shortened the lines but it has not eased the real problem,'' he said.
"There's still a lot of gas stations without power, a lot of stations
without gas inventory. I have frustrated members, and they have
frustrated customers.''
Risalvato said he does not know when the situation will return to normal.
"Everybody
I've dealt with is working as hard, fast and furious as possible,''
Risalvato said. "I just think the overall problem is ... overwhelming
and monumental.''
Many New Jersey commuters counting on public transit to get to work in Manhattan also had a long, hard day.
The
wait at the Lincoln Tunnel during Monday morning's rush hour stretched
to 90 minutes, said New Jersey Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder. And of
the 63 New Jersey Transit trains that usually head into New York's Penn
Station during the peak morning commuting time, only 13 were running on
Monday in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, according to the agency.
But with commuter rail lines such as the PATH train not running at all,
New Jersey Transit carried 170,000 commuters on Monday, 15% more than
the 136,000 it typically serves in the weekday rush, Snyder said.
The
crowding got so bad Monday morning that the North Jersey Coast rail
line had to suspend service. Snyder said dozens of buses were added to
winnow the lines at Newark's Penn Station to get commuters into New York
City.
"There are going to be overcrowding issues,'' Snyder said.
"It's not going to be full service as they knew it prior to the storm.
We're making further adjustments and refinements based on what we
experienced this morning to make it more efficient.''
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