M&E Service Cuts: NJT’s Lame Excuses
May 16th 2008 10:27 am
http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=22200
The current ridership balance is 65% to New York, and 35% to Hoboken, Newark, and local. After a 40% rise in New York ridership to 36,150, 30% reduction to Hoboken, and assuming the rest was constant, there was still a 13% increase in overall M&E ridership, not meriting a 33% reduction in train frequency. With the remaining Gladstone and Dover trains bunched at one time per hour, it represents historic low levels of service to Summit and Morristown, which always had half-hourly service on weekdays back to DL&W days. Their claim that they are “balancing needs of ridership throughout the system to put the trains and seats where they are most needed” is a specious argument. A “low overdue assessment” does not excuse the lack of notice to county and state officials and their customers.
Absent from their analysis were less painful cost reductions such as cutting back Dover – Hoboken locals to Morristown, consist cuts, and crew size reductions. If the Princeton Dinky can run with a 2-person crew; so can Hoboken trains if they were so badly utilized.
NJT is an arrogant, smug, incompetent bureaucracy putting out an increasingly expensive product with poor reliability. They are in drastic need of legislated re-regulation, micro-management, and reform.
specious responded on 16 May 2008 at 4:35 pm #
[…] in New York ridership to 36,150, 30% reduction to Hoboken, and assuming the rest was constant, thehttp://www.nj-arp.org/blog/2008/05/me-service-cuts-njts-lame-excuses/Misinterpreting ‘public benefits’ The News & ObserverPoorly drafted law can give spineless […]
Eine Kleine Multi-level responded on 16 May 2008 at 4:55 pm #
What are they basing the supposed 30 percent reduction of riders bound for Hoboken on? It’s funny how we are supposed to take the word of the spokesman for granted (who used to be an Amtrak mouthpiece to boot, and had to read in public the equivocation for that entity) without seeing what data the numbers are based on, and consequently what influenced what.
Personally, I saw nothing but trouble ahead once I read statements by both Sarles and Kolluri when Sarles’ tenure as ED of NJT began. It’s not so much NJT being bureaucratic as Sarles and Kolluri being totalitarian and trying to buck reality.
coffeelen responded on 18 May 2008 at 9:04 pm #
It is disgraceful. At a time when gasoline will very soon approach $5 per gallon, the state’s Transit Agency should be INCREASING service, not truncating it. NJ Transit has to somehow let go of the notion that “everyone” goes to New York. There are ways to run frequent shuttles and local trains so people can get from point A to point B within NEW JERSEY. The cutback on service on the M&E is staggering stupidity.
Rock_nj responded on 19 May 2008 at 9:43 pm #
At a time like this with energy prices rising, NJ Transit should be considering re-opening the inner stations on the M&E in East Orange and Newark and running more local service to serve them. I do not understand why M&E stations like Ampere and Roseville do not have local service. It seems as if the State and NJ Transit have just given up on these inner city areas, or did so a long time ago. If they want to revitalize these depressed areas train service would be a good thing to add. Suddenly value conscious commuters might start looking in these blighted areas for quick access to NYC. In any case, what is the rationale for not serving historic local stations in East Orange and Newark? It can’t be because they already have enough stations. How many stations does Montclair have? 5 or 6. East Orange and Newark have more people who live without cars, and need NJ Transit to get around. Seems unfair.
coffeelen responded on 25 May 2008 at 7:07 pm #
Right on, Rock_nj. NJ Transit needs to realize that, yes, people do travel between NEW JERSEY towns and not everyone is bound for New York. One of our members in Mt. Tabor is mobilizing his area to hit NJT hard on their Hoboken service cut-back. A lot of the towns along the M&E are waking up to the fact that NJT is skirting the law by changing schedules so that they fall just ONE minute beneath the requirement where a cut-back needs a public hearing. As Judge Judy says: “OUTRAGEOUS”.