EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Aug. 25 - If further evidence is needed that the car is king in New Jersey - and that matters of traffic and roads trump most other issues - look no further than the Meadowlands.
The New York Giants have gone to court to try to block their neighbor, the planned $1.3 billion Meadowlands Xanadu family entertainment and retail complex, from operating on game days, on the grounds that it would turn a trip to a Giants game from a mere traffic problem into a traffic nightmare.
The fight among the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which owns the land; the Giants; and the developers of Meadowlands Xanadu appeared to be over last May when the team and the state agreed to a plan for a new privately financed $750 million football stadium on a separate parcel nearby.
But in papers filed in State Superior Court in Bergen County on Aug. 23, just a month before the team is to provide details about the new stadium, its lawyers sued, asking a judge to immediately restrict the operations of Xanadu, now under construction.
According to their court papers, the Giants say their fans' No. 1 complaint involves getting into and out of the stadium grounds on game days - a feat that involves 24,000 cars and as many as 80,000 fans. With Xanadu, 12,000 cars will be added to the mix, both sides agree.
Some of the cars will be shunted to Xanadu's garages, affecting those fans' ability to indulge in that parking lot tradition, tailgate parties.
The Giants say they are actually losing parking spaces. But the lawsuit is about more than parking, the team concedes. With details of the new stadium to be worked out, the suit is an attempt by the team to gain leverage in talks with Xanadu's developers and to strengthen its hand in dealing with the sports and exposition authority. In particular, the team wants court enforcement of a provision in its lease that makes its consent required for any changes in the complex that affect the team's operations on game days or compete with them.
The issue seems to have become a matter of pride for John Mara, the executive vice president of the Giants. In an interview, Mr. Mara spoke wistfully about the decision his father, Wellington Mara, made in 1971 to move the Giants from Yankee Stadium. There, they were "second-class tenants." To get the true football stadium he desired, he decided to move his team to what was then a vast marsh and vacant expanse of filled-in dump.
One editorial cartoon at the time depicted the elder Mr. Mara, cloaked like George Washington on a snowy winter night, standing at the prow of a boat, being rowed by football players onto a shore strewn with broken bottles, crushed cans and litter. There was wide speculation, apart from New York-centric chauvinism, that the move to New Jersey would be a disaster for the team.
It was in that atmosphere that the Giants managed to get provisions in their lease that gave them a virtual veto over alterations at the site that might affect their operations. John Mara says those provisions are crystal clear, but Carl J. Goldberg, the chairman of the sports and exposition authority, insists they are not.
Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist and professor at Smith College, said such clauses were common in stadium lease arrangements around the country. "They are designed to maximize space and thereby maximize revenues for the team," he said.
Mr. Mara said the Giants feel they must invoke the provisions to protect their interests. "It was a decision by my family that gave rise to this entire complex," he said. "And to be honest, we are starting to feel like second-class citizens over here."
Xanadu's retail operations would be closed on Sunday game days because of county blue laws, but restaurants and other activities would be open. Mr. Goldberg said Giants fans could stick around to eat and play, and the drawn-out day could actually decrease the traffic congestion immediately after the games.
A planned rail link to the Meadowlands could reduce traffic by as many as 10,000 to 20,000 cars, officials have estimated. Martin E. Robins of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University said an efficient rail connection would come to be accepted by fans "over time."
But Mr. Zimbalist is skeptical. "These are people of means who want to drive and are not going to take public transportation," he said.
Mr. Mara said the blue laws affect only Sundays, and more and more league games are on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, putting the stadium in direct competition with Xanadu - a situation that the anticompetition and noninterference clauses are meant to address.
The Xanadu developers say they have offered traffic improvements, to be carried out on a timetable to be negotiated with the team. Further, they have agreed to spend $80 million on road construction. Michael Turner, a spokesman for the developers, the Mills Corporation and the Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, also said that whatever the team loses in surface parking would be more than made up by Xanadu's parking decks.
Mr. Mara is holding fast, insisting that Xanadu not be allowed to open on game days until all of the road improvements are completed and proven to work. He said deck parking is no alternative for football fans and tailgate partygoers.
George R. Zoffinger, the president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, who carried out Gov. James E. McGreevey's mission to broaden the use of the Meadowlands by bringing in Xanadu, said the Giants' stance was "all about the money." He said the team was hobbling efforts to better use the land for creating jobs and producing tax revenues for the state.
Mr. Mara said he realizes that the lawsuit and the team's tough stance could jeopardize plans for the new stadium. But he said it was a chance he had to take. "This lawsuit is necessary for us to preserve our rights as we go into any new negotiations," he said. "We only have 10 home games a year, and Xanadu has the other 355 days to operate."