Penn Centralization of NJT M&E Service Continues
April 25th 2008 08:59 am
Midday weekday M&E service will soon more or less resemble what it is on weekends: hourly service between Dover and NYPS, dovetailing at Summit with a slower hourly Gladstone-Hoboken local service requiring the latter to sit at Summit for 10 or more minutes.
While weekend service frequency remains constant for all stations, there will be no Gladstone-Hoboken local service between Summit and Newark. The Newark-Hoboken shuttle equipment will lay up in Newark for one hour, and there will still be a 3 hour gap in service in the late evening. The Shuttle could easily run up to Montclair and back during that layover, and the 3 hour gap can also be closed. Both could occur for a negligible increase in operating costs.
The equipment and crew utilization on this Shuttle is scandalous. Evidently, NJT cannot grasp the concepts of Incremental Accounting and they continue to shun any influence from rail advocates with short notice of massive service cuts, and slower service on what remains.
coffeelen responded on 25 Apr 2008 at 9:24 pm #
A very apt analogy. NJT looks more and more like Penn Central everyday. Who will rescue it when it collapes this time? The schedule move is sheer idiocy at a time when $4/gallon gasoline will be driving more and more people to rail transit. With service truncated, there will be fewer riders. NJT will then decry the lack of riders and cut service even more. Kris Kolluri, ESQ, the DOT Commissioner, is out to lunch and has been from day one.
Eine Kleine Multi-level responded on 28 Apr 2008 at 1:44 pm #
True about Kolluri. Sarles is a mere sounding board.
What NJT needs to do is drop THE Tunnel like a hot potato and concentrate on maintaining/increasing service levels to present destinations, as well as focus on intrastate service expansion in earnest.
Clark Morris responded on 06 May 2008 at 3:53 pm #
I would like to see every 15 minute local service between Summit and Newark with the terminal being Hoboken for MU’s and if the schedule can be improve by using MU’s then all trains to Hoboken with good connections at Newark for the Locomotive hauled trains. Again for intra-New Jersey service, the fare system should be the same as the buses with transfers to them EVEN and ESPECIALLY for single trips.
Joe Versaggi responded on 06 May 2008 at 5:45 pm #
The zone bus fares aren’t that much cheaper than rail.