Road Warrior: Route 4 rates low on the pothole fix list

AMY NEWMAN/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Potholes riddle the parking lot of Westfield Garden State Plaza close to Route 4 in Paramus.

Drive a mile or so east on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Paterson, and you're treated to a surprisingly smooth winter ride.

Despite curbside piles of snow and incessant traffic lights, this old, two-lane city thoroughfare also called Broadway contains relatively few potholes. This silky condition continues as the road becomes Route 4, a state highway through Elmwood Park and Fair Lawn, until silk turns to gravel with a series of disappointing bumps and thuds near the Paramus malls.

Craters have even cropped up at some of the entrances to the malls and their parking lots. Fear of these black holes, on the roads or in parking lots, was enough to make Teaneck's Paula Rogovin skip a concert in Fair Lawn last week even though her favorite group was performing. Some, like Mary Beaven, now treat all of Route 4 like a winter pariah.

"I avoid it as much as possible," the Teaneck motorist said.

And Jeffrey Alecci wants the state to pay for the broken tire he blames on a big Route 4 crater.

"When will they fix it?" the Wyckoff motorist asked.

But no one is more disappointed than Richard Barbieri.

"I realize conditions aren't great right now," the Paramus mayor said, "but you would think red flags would have started appearing on somebody's radar by now when one of the state's most-traveled retail highways wasn't getting the treatment it deserves."

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Road Warrior: Route 4 rates low on the pothole fix list