I ride MidTown Direct into NY Penn every day and the time it takes to get from the platform to the intermediate or top level grows by the day. My daily train generally comes in at either track 9 or 10. For the past several months, “work” has been going on to replace the escalators. In doing so, the area is boarded up and riders need to go towards the 7th Ave. end to go upstairs. Only one set of escalators is available–every once in a while. Why? Because invariably there is an Amtrak train leaving on the opposite track and the escalator is running in the down mode. I’ve written to Amtrak about utilizing the same 2 or 4 tracks they need in the morning so they don’t interfere with the hordes disembarking from NJ Transit. I’ve never received a reply and none is expected, sadly. I’ve started going into the City the old-fashioned way–through Hoboken.

But a bad by-product of this is that the 5:18am train from Raritan and 2:05am train from Newark are also eliminated. A common schedule defect on the Raritan, Bergen, Main, and Pascack diesel lines is that it is impossible to arrive Manhattan before 7:40am. I have been on that train a couple of times over the years, it is far from empty, and I don’t think anyone gets up to ride it unless they have to. In addition for some that have to be at work on a weekend that early, it will be impossible for anyone on those lines to catch once a day trains like the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, Palmetto, or Carolinian.

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.

Testimony of
Albert L. Papp, Jr., Regional Director and Secretary
National Association of Railroad Passengers
and
Director and Recording Secretary
New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers
before
The New Jersey Assembly Budget Committee
March 26, 2008

My name is Albert L. Papp, Jr.  I am a Regional Director and Secretary of the 24,000 member National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), headquartered in Washington, D.C., and a Director and Recording Secretary of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers (NJ-ARP).

The matter I would like to address is one of particular urgency and concerns New Jersey Transit’s (NJT) plan to build two complimentary and symbiotic megaprojects costing a total of $9 billion to augment trans-Hudson regional rail capacity to midtown Manhattan.

Called “Access to the Region’s Core” (ARC) and the “Portal Bridge Capacity Enhancement Project” (PBCEP), NARP and NJ-ARP strongly believe these two projects as now configured by NJT will not serve the best interests of 21st century regional and intercity rail riders.

Specifically, since the state Senate and Assembly have the “Power of the Purse Strings,” we are requesting that before any sparse state money is authorized and appropriated for these twin megaprojects, they be re-examined in light of a less expensive - but more effective - option that would eventually allow a rail connection to be constructed between New York’s Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal and permit Amtrak access to both Manhattan stations.  Joe Clift will detail that proposal in his testimony.

“Access to the Region’s Core” was conceived in the mid-1990s under the sponsorship of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey with co-sponsorship by the state rail operating agencies.  The original purpose of the project was to tie the tri-state metropolitan area together and permit interoperability between the region’s operating transit agencies - NJT, Metro-North Commuter Railroad, and the Long Island Rail Road.  The project’s scoping document explained that 70% of all midtown Manhattan job sites were within a 10 minute walk from Grand Central, but only 36% from Penn Station, hence the original concept of connecting these two stations.  Therefore, the keystone of this effort was to be the construction of a rail link between Penn Station and Grand Central; however, after NJT became the “lead agency” under the McGreevey administration, that element of the plan was eliminated.

In its present form, this once regionally comprehensive plan has devolved into nothing more than a six track “deep cavern” annex to New York Penn Station beneath 34th Street for use only by NJT trains.  Additionally, because of the June 2007 deletion of a previous switching facility on the New York side of the Hudson River, Amtrak trains will be forever precluded from using the new trans-Hudson rail tunnels under normal operations.

Despite clear evidence to the contrary in the 2003 Major Investment Study (MIS) “Summary Report” by the study team, NJT decided to reject the long sought after Manhattan Penn Station to Grand Central Terminal rail connection.  The MIS concluded that such a rail link would have cost the least to build and operate, attracted the most riders, and diverted the greatest number of motorists of three final alternatives studied.  But NJT dismissed (incorrectly in our opinion) this logical choice.

To make matters worse, the only public document that was published in this regard was a 31 page “Summary Report,” hardly adequate, we opine, for a multi-billion dollar undertaking.  In order for the ARC Regional Citizen’s Liaison Committee (RCLC) to accurately compare the pluses and minuses of the three finalists, we asked for the lengthy background evaluations of each.  However, despite numerous and persistent requests, both verbally and in writing, we continue to be “stonewalled” in our requests to obtain this important data under the guise that such information was only in “Draft” form and therefore not releasable to the public.  This statement - by the NJT Project Director - was put into the public record as recently as February 27th of this year at the RCLC meeting held in Newark.  If the RCLC is to be effective, this information is vital; yet NJT continues to obstruct its acquisition.

We take particular issue with this tepid response.  In our opinion, we feel that since this is a public project, and paid for with public funds, the public is entitled to see and analyze the results of this effort.  We hope you will concur.

Therefore, NARP and NJ-ARP request the Committee to actively intervene with New Jersey Transit and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to secure the release of these crucial documents.

We hope you will take our views under advisement and stand ready to meet with you to more fully explore the ramifications of the ARC and PBCEP on the region’s, the state’s and the nation’s transportation infrastructure.

Thank you.

One public hearing is in Newark on Monday, March 31. The other is in New York City on Tuesday, April 1. Details here.

Comments on the ARC SDEIS can also be submitted in writing to: Tom Schulze, NJ TRANSIT ARC Project Director, One Penn Plaza East, 8th Floor, Newark, NJ 07105 or via email to sdeis@accesstotheregionscore.com. Comments must be submitted to NJ TRANSIT by April 28, 2008.

The proposed second rail tunnel to New York City should go all the way to Manhattan’s East Side, according to a planning study that will be released Tuesday. Instead of ending at Penn Station, the tunnel would reach Madison Avenue with a possible link to Grand Central.

The Regional Plan Association, a transportation advocacy group, also recommends adding a light-rail loop to NJTransit’s Access to the Region’s Core project to increase midtown circulation that would accommodate new Manhattan development.

“New York and New Jersey need the same access over the Hudson River that Long Islanders will realize when the LIRR starts arriving at Grand Central in 2015 — shaving times off already long commutes and getting to their jobs faster,” said Jeffrey Zupan, senior transportation fellow for RPA and the report’s primary author.

The three-part analysis, the result of a multi-year research effort called, “The New Trans-Hudson Tunnel: Making it Work Best,” says the extension would shave approximately 20 minutes per day off the commutes of 30,000 New Jersey commuters arriving at Penn Station but destined for the East Side.

The Record

Voorhees still silent on Transit Village need to morph into Transit City.

“…The $650 million plan fits those needs, calling for a 150-room hotel, a 53,000-square-foot supermarket (the downtown could sure use one of these), a health club including a pool, and several pocket parks, helping to refresh the area’s urban landscape.
Rough housing plans call for about 730 apartments and 28 town houses, ranging in price from $500,000 to $800,000; the concept would serve New Brunswick’s need to provide housing for its growing professional and New York City commuter base, as well as high-salaried employees of its burgeoning health-care industry and Rutgers University…

The plan announced Wednesday by City Hall officials and the developer, Tom Moore, principal of New Street Area Development LLC follows closely on the heels of last week’s unveiling of a proposed 34-story office building to be constructed in the footprint of New Brunswick’s George Street and Crossroads theaters…”

The Home News Tribune

United Transportation Union officials revealed a list of six incidents in February in which doors opened up while trains were in motion on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast and Morris and Essex lines.

In addition, a train car door closed on a Raritan Valley Line passenger, said officials from the union, which represents NJ Transit conductors and assistant conductors.

The article lists the six incidents where doors opened, including at least one case where the center doors of a car opened while the train was traveling through the Hudson River tunnels.

NJ Transit Executive Director Richard Sarles said he was familiar with the door malfunction reports and will have a report for the board by the April meeting.

“Our number one priority is safety,” he said.

[Patrick Reilly, general chairman of UTU Local 60], also detailed two design defects with NJ Transit’s Comet V rail cars, the second-newest cars in the fleet, and the new multi-level cars now being delivered. Those involve hand brakes on the rail cars, which he said don’t meet standards of the FRA safety appliance act.

Sarles said that issue is being addressed.

“The incidents on Tuesday and Thursday could not have come at a worse time or in a worse location,” Stessel said. “Any time there’s an interruption in the normal two-track flow in and out of Penn Station during the peak period, we feel the pain for the entire rush hour. Of course, this is exactly why we need a new tunnel to supplement the existing infrastructure. It’s also why we’re moving so aggressively to get shovels in the ground.”

That statement seems fine at first glance. But the problem is that after T.H.E. Tunnel and the bunker station beneath 34th Street are built, there will be no direct connection to NY Penn Station. The nearest connection will be in Kearny, NJ, about 8 miles from NYC. Trains from NY Penn Station will still go through the same two tunnels as they do now. So if a train breaks-down in the tunnel from NY, it will still interrupt “the normal two-track flow in and out of Penn Station during the peak period” and you’ll still “feel the pain for the entire rush hour”.

The only advantage will be that people using the 34th Street bunker station, e.g., Midtown Direct passengers, won’t be directly affected. But if a train breaks-down in their tunnel, they’ll be delayed just as much as if they were riding from NY Penn Station.

If NJT really manages to double capacity once the 34th Street bunker station is built, a break-down in either the old or new tunnels will affect just as many people as today. You’ll just have a 50-50 chance that it will be in your station/tunnel combination.

Elsewhere in the above document, I see references to increasing NJT’s funding by $100 million, then reducing it by $40 million. (That’s where the $60 million figure comes from.) The $40 million is tallied-up as a budget cut, even though the $100 million was never spent. It’s like telling your wife you just saved $80,000 by not buying a Mercedes, but in reality, you didn’t save anything because you never had the $80,000 in the first place.

Keep that in mind when you hear the politicians telling you how much they cut spending.