I wanted to share this story in hopes that perhaps it will influence some politicians.

It's getting very frustrating because everyone (including the state) encourages carpools to eliminate unnecessary traffic on the roads. My co-workers and I have formed a carpool of four people, and we meet in the Cheesequake rest area on the Garden State Parkway. We meet each morning around 7:40 a.m. and commute to Jersey City.

The problem we are having is that the designated carpool parking lot in the Cheesequake rest area is not adequate for the volume of people who carpool. This leads to cars overflowing and parking in the lot designated for the actual rest-area restaurant. I would say that there are approximately 100 cars, if not more, that are forced to park in that lot every day. We have now all received warning letters on our windshields stating that we will be ticketed if we continue to park in that lot.

The problem that I have is that the state wants people to carpool to alleviate traffic, but it does not want to provide enough parking for carpooling. I'm trying to figure out exactly what state officials expect us to do if we show up in the morning and there are no spots left in which to park. Are we supposed to go home? I currently live in Old Bridge. My carpool consists of one person from Freehold and two people from Brick. This is the only place where we can centrally meet to park.

We must somehow convince the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, Garden State Parkway Division, to look at this from the eyes of a commuter. We are trying to do the right thing, and now they want to penalize us for it.

William Stuart

Old Bridge