Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - Empire State O'Reilly: Bad Traffic

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Bill talks about how traffic dictates his life. Originally only available in the New York City area, Bill’s Empire State O’Reilly commentary addresses local New York issues, but those issues have implications, impact the country, and mirror problems in other states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I had an interesting conversation the other day. So the woman lives out in Suffolk County. And I'm just casually talking to her. I've known her for a while. And I said, so what's up for Thanksgiving? She goes, oh, I'm going to see my sister in New Jersey. Oh, that's nice. I said, you're riding out there.

And, you know, she told me the name of the town she's going to. And I said, whoa, that's going to be quite. a journey, he goes, oh, no, we're going to leave about 10 a.m. on Thursday, and we think we'll probably get there by noon. And I go, are you going to take a spaceship, a hang glider? So I said, you've got to get across that George Washington Bridge. You've got to go on the cross Bronx Expressway. Dan, nah, nah, the worst road in the country. There is no worse road than the Cross Browns Expressway from Whitesone of Throg's Neck all the way across to Fort Lee. Okay?

So to think that you're going to skate through that, and I go, look, I just want you to have a nice Thanksgiving, but maybe you want to go and stay overnight, you know, go late on Wednesday and, you know, avoid the chaos. But you go Thanksgiving morning, it's not like Christmas morning where everybody at Christmas morning is kind of there, going to change in a exchange and presents and all of that. Thanksgiving, people are still trying to get where they want to go. And then you get the parade, remember the parade, Thanksgiving, Macy's parade in New York City. I mean, people coming to that. But it struck me that a lot of people who don't travel often don't know the heart of the heart. of the New York metropolitan area traffic.

I mean, everything that I do in my life, logistically, I've got to time around traffic. So I live about 20 miles from midtown. It could take up to two hours depending on when I, and there's no more rush hour. The traffic starts at about 6.15 a.m. AM, and it goes to 7.30 at night in that realm. And it's never a time when it's not that way. And the reason, and I said this before in common sense, is because when I was growing up,

most families had one car. Now most families have three cars, maybe even more, depending on how many kids you got. And the roads had not expanded. So you had one car. in the 1960s, and now you've got three or four cars in 2023. What do you think's going to happen? I mean, it's so bad that when I go to New England, and I have to go up there because my sister lives up there, and I have friends all over the place, and Boston's my second home.

I went to school and worked there and all that. I can't drive around the horn anymore. I got to go out to the North Fork and take the ferry, from New London, from Orient Point to New London, which is a thousand times better. Yeah, it costs a little bit more money, but when you factor in the gas and the frustration, it's worth it. So I take the boat over, dumps you off in eastern Connecticut, and you're up into Boston in a little more than two hours from there.

So everything I do, if I want to go, for example, of Philadelphia, I don't drive to Philadelphia. It's insane. Take the train. And I'd rather have the car, of course, but you can't get through it. It's the only way to get around this area is to drive from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. And I do that. I'll drive at night. I don't mind driving at night. But people, you know, I felt sorry because This nice woman's got two kids. They want to have a nice Thanksgiving. I'm sitting there. Am I Grinch here telling them, you know?

And if there's an accident, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you know, it's one accident. And you're backed up till Lake Ronkonkama from the cross Bronx. Anyway, a word to the wise, as they say.