New Jersey Transportation

In New Jersey, diamonds aren't forever. On Monday, the state plans to open up diamond lanes, previously restricted to car-poolers, to all drivers, moving into the fast lane a debate over whether California should proceed with its multibillion-dollar plan to add hundreds of miles of carpool lanes to freeways. In California, the diamond lane's glitter definitely is in the eye of the beholder. Diamond lanes are strongly supported by the California Department of Transportation.

In New Jersey, diamonds aren't forever. On Monday, the state plans to open up diamond lanes, previously restricted to car-poolers, to all drivers, moving into the fast lane a debate over whether California should proceed with its multibillion-dollar plan to add hundreds of miles of carpool lanes to freeways. In California, the diamond lane's glitter definitely is in the eye of the beholder. Diamond lanes are strongly supported by the California Department of Transportation.

A garbage dump caught fire beneath Interstate 78 Monday, buckling the elevated roadway and causing a shutdown of the thoroughfare at one of the nation's busiest highway interchanges. "This is the most serious traffic emergency in my memory," said Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who flew over the site. "It could not have occurred in a worse place." Further problems linking the busy New York area with parts of Pennsylvania could occur if the blaze spreads south to rubbish beneath U.S.

A garbage dump caught fire beneath Interstate 78 Monday, buckling the elevated roadway and causing a shutdown of the thoroughfare at one of the nation's busiest highway interchanges. "This is the most serious traffic emergency in my memory," said Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who flew over the site. "It could not have occurred in a worse place." Further problems linking the busy New York area with parts of Pennsylvania could occur if the blaze spreads south to rubbish beneath U.S.

As warehouses go, there are few like Skechers USA Inc.'s new 1.82-million-square-foot distribution center. This warehouse is so big that it takes half a minute to drive from one end to the other at 60 miles per hour. The setup is so advanced that human hands will hardly touch the cargo as it is unpacked, categorized, stacked and prepared for delivery. The building is so green that it uses prevailing winds for ventilation instead of air conditioning. For its new North American operations warehouse, the nation's No. 2 footwear company chose the Inland Empire's Moreno Valley.

Thomas M. Downs, New Jersey's transportation commissioner, has been selected to run Amtrak, the financially pinched national passenger railroad corporation. Downs was named Tuesday to replace W. Graham Claytor Jr., 81, whose retirement has been anticipated for months but was delayed pending the appointment of a successor. Claytor will officially depart on Monday, and Downs will take over the next day as president and chairman, Amtrak's board of directors announced.

On a December morning last year, a patch of pea soup fog caused a horrific pileup on Interstate 5, closing all lanes into Sacramento at the beginning of the rush-hour commute. The California Highway Patrol immediately detoured the blocked traffic onto a parallel freeway, California Route 99. And the first thing they did was to open the diamond lane to all traffic. Why? "To increase the capacity, of course," said one CHP official, who sounded somewhat incredulous at the question.

The Expectant Moviegoer turned the page . . . and another . . . and another . . . and wow--520 movies! We could watch one every day and never catch up. The Cynical Moviegoer frowned. So what--just more bad movies. What a grouch, thought the Expectant Moviegoer. There are plenty of things missing from American film, but variety isn't one of them.

Every two minutes during rush hour, a commuter train bound for Manhattan squeezes through a 100-year-old tunnel under the Hudson River. The trains are almost always packed as they head into Penn Station, the busiest hub in America. Construction began more than a year ago on a new rail tunnel with almost nine miles of track designed to double the passenger train capacity between New Jersey and New York, and redirect tens of thousands of commuters to a new terminal under Macy's on 34th Street.

Sitting in the lounge car of this train that runs along the West Coast, Linda King and husband Paul Smith rest their infant daughter between them and gaze at the San Francisco skyline passing outside their window. The Santa Barbara couple are devoted train travelers, even though they have often endured the typical Amtrak ride during the railroad's 25-year history: one characterized by shoddy service, late arrivals, lousy food and, in King's words, "old cars that just bang and rattle."