I live about 5 miles from the GW Bridge and am very familiar with it. You have to understand that all the major highways in north Jersey lead to the bridge (or slightly south to the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels). Routes 4, 5, 46, Palisades Interstate Parkway, US 80-95 and others all feed directly into the bridge and the toll lanes, which are on the Jersey side (you pay for a round trip at the NJ toll booths going into NYC).
The particular lanes that were closed by the Christie admin were not on those highways. The are sort of a side entrance to the bridge leading off of local Fort Lee streets, so you might think they benefited only those living in Fort Lee. But that would be very wrong.
Closing any lanes, especially at morning rush hour, would back up traffic everywhere. People in towns all over north Jersey use local approaches to the bridge and also use those lanes that were closed. Anyone going east on the bridge to NYC and coming from Fort Lee, Cliffside Park, Palisades Park, Ridgefield, Englewood, Englwood Cliffs, Tenafly, and many more towns would use those same lanes, so closing them affects a very large number of people.
And once those local lanes clog up drivers will seek alternate lanes to the bridge, then clogging up those highways I mentioned above. It so happens that on one of the days the lanes were closed I had an eye doctor appointment in Fort Lee at 8 am and was over an hour late, as were many on the doctor's staff. Everyone knew there was some kind of traffic problem and we just assumed it was an accident. A truck overturning on the Cross Bronx Expressway on the other side of the bridge can sometimes back traffic up to Paramus, over 5 miles west. The whole area was a mess, not just local streets in Fort Lee.
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