From Wall Street Journal:
A political ally of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who ordered disruptive lane closures on the George Washington Bridge this year has resigned from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, people familiar with the matter said.
David Wildstein, a veteran political operative who was the authority’s director of interstate capital projects, will leave his post on Jan. 1 and cited the continuing controversy over the bridge incident in early September in his resignation letter, one of the people said.
Mr. Wildstein, whose salary is $150,000 a year, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.
Mr. Wildstein called the manager of the bridge in early September and ordered him to cut the number of local access lanes onto the bridge from Fort Lee, N.J., from three to one, people familiar with the matter said. The week-long changes were made beginning Sept. 9, these people said, without informing local authorities or other executives at the sprawling Port Authority, which is controlled by both Mr. Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The result was a week of major traffic backups in Fort Lee, a borough of about 35,000 people at the western end of the bridge. It has become a headache for Mr. Christie and his Port Authority appointees, as politicians, local authorities and executives within the authority debated why the lane closures occurred.
Port Authority officials have said the lanes were closed to locals to conduct a study of traffic patterns. That assessment was contradicted by people familiar with the matter. “There was no study,” one of those people said.
Some Democratic lawmakers have said they believed the purpose of the closure was political.
Lawmakers have said Mr. Wildstein’s maneuver appeared to be retaliation against the borough’s Democratic mayor, who had declined to endorse Mr. Christie’s re-election two weeks before the lanes were shut off.
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