Missing the point on Bridgegate

Nobody asked the most basic question when bridgegate became a story. What is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and what is it for? It turns out that the Port Authority is designed to take politics out of NY Metro transportation issues, to isolate and insulate such decisions from political passions. 

That an underling of the Governor of New Jersey could pick up a phone and get the traffic configuration coming off the George Washington bridge changed is supposed to not be possible by design. 

Obviously the design failed. Obviously the Port Authority will not fundamentally change because its basic reason for being has been exposed as a fiction. That would make too much sense.