EDITORIAL: Don’t rest until job is finished

Stay the course on support for Baroni’s bill

   Opponents of Route 92 have every right to feel like the Detroit Tigers.
   Faced with the seemingly impossible task of knocking off the best team that money could buy, the Tigers’ team of young unknowns refused to back down, outworking the Yankees and advancing to the next round of the baseball playoffs.
   Route 92 opponents — essentially a rag-tag collection of municipal governments, environmental groups and residents from South Brunswick, Franklin and Plainsboro — were in a similar position. Arrayed against them were land developers, the construction trade unions, planning groups and municipal and county governments. Supporters had the money to bring in a public relations firm, conduct polling, send out mass mailings and run television and newspaper ads extolling the road’s virtues. But in the end, it appears, the underdog has won.
   No one will say this, of course. Instead, we have the federal Army Corps of Engineers issuing a final Environmental Impact Statement on the road without a recommendation — a move that Corps watchers say is unheard of. And we have the N.J. Turnpike Authority — an agency that had been adamant in its desire to get the road built — saying it is not a priority, apparently willing to let it fade away.
   That’s fantastic news — for now. It is important to remember, however, that these projects have a tendency to rise from the dead, so it is imperative to do everything possible to finish the job.
   That means staying vigilant and convincing the state Legislature to pass Assemblyman Bill Baroni’s bill, which would take the road away from the Turnpike and drive a stake into the road’s heart.