As part of our continuing effort to keep you informed about events that concern our rail service and transit generally, we will post our statements from time to time, along with other documents that we believe you should see.

We received significant media coverage after I made a statement at the meeting of the NJ Transit Board on August 8th.  Here is the statement as I submitted it for the record.

Since that meeting, riders on the Atlantic City Rail Line and their advocates have kept up the pressure on NJ Transit to announce a definite date for the return of the trains to their line.  In response, at a public meeting held in Atlantic City on August 20th, NJT Executive Director Kevin Corbett said that the line would be back in service by January 1, 2019.  We look forward to the trains coming back, and we hope it happens by then. 

At this writing, there is no similar "date certain" for the return of one-seat-ride service to and from Penn Station, New York on the Raritan Valley Line.  We call for the restoration and expansion of that service as quickly as possible.

LACKAWANNA COALITION STATEMENT FOR NJT BOARD MEETING 8-8-18

The changes in our right to address this Board, which begin today, include a significant reduction in the amount of time available to us. Instead of the two five-minute opportunities to comment that we had before, we are now allowed only a single five-minute statement. We could say that for giving up this opportunity to be heard, we will no longer be forced to wait through the entire executive session; a feature that discouraged the sort of expression that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is designed to protect. The current start time has shortened our wait by sixty minutes, which is a step in the right direction. We must insist on another change, which is an assurance from you, Commissioner, that if an executive session is still ongoing at 10:00, it will recess until the public portion of the meeting is concluded, so we will no longer suffer the inconvenience of being forced to wait through an entire executive session before we are permitted to exercise our right to speak.

Concerning today's agenda, I addressed the budget issues last month. I have submitted a copy of my statement as an exhibit, and I incorporate those remarks by reference as part of today's record.

There are other issues that must be dealt with immediately. I have been riding the Morris & Essex Line and other lines now operated by NJ Transit for more than sixty years and have advocated for your riders for more than 33 years, and our transit has never been worse. I have been informed that the entire Morris & Essex Line schedule ran last Saturday. That used to be commonplace. Now it is rare. There have been so many annulments lately that we can no longer count on the transit specified in the schedules, which we consider the contract between NJ Transit and us, the riders. I said that to Paul Mulshine in my personal capacity, and I stand by it factually today. This epidemic of annulments inconveniences commuters, who might not get to their jobs on time and must endure overcrowded trains. For those of us who depend on transit, the situation is even worse. On week-ends, we have been forced to endure gaps between trains of two, three, and even four hours.

You motorists who decide how much mobility we are permitted to have are not affected by any of this. But when you reduce the amount of mobility that you dole out to us who depend on transit, as if we are welfare recipients whose benefits you can reduce at will, you interfere with our lives. This is absolutely unacceptable.

The impending suspensions of of the Atlantic City Rail Line and the New York trains on the Raritan Valley Line are very troubling, because those discontinuances may be unlawful, and because we do not see how this level of inconvenience to your riders will be very helpful in alleviating the shortage of engineers. Advocates from South Jersey helped get Atlantic City rail service restored in 1990. Now you plan to eliminate all of it without a hearing, which might violate N.J.S.A. §27:25-8(d), a provision that does not distinguish between temporary and permanent elimination. Through a campaign that we support, the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition has fought for years to get direct service to New York, and you now plan to eliminate it, also without a hearing. This leads to the conclusion that, if advocates pushed for a service enhancement, it will forever be vulnerable. We do not see how this inconvenience to the affected riders will help alleviate the engineer shortage, either. Cutting back all Raritan trains to Newark might free up one engineer at a time. Killing Atlantic City service can only make as many engineers available as are qualified to operate on the Newark or Hoboken Divisions, which are a long distance from South Jersey. We don't know how many there are. In other words, the affected riders could be forced to pay very dearly for only a small benefit. We strongly urge you not to eliminate these services.

We are also deeply concerned that nobody of appropriate authority at NJ Transit has specified a date certain on which you expect full service on the affected lines to be restored, if you do eliminate them. If these cuts are truly for a limited time only, you can tell us exactly when those services will come back. We remember the express train from Hoboken to Gladstone that was eliminated in 2001, purportedly temporarily to accommodate track work in the Bergen Hill Tunnels. That train never came back, as Amtrak service between New Orleans and Jacksonville was “suspended” for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and never came back, either.

We are concerned that we will lose those trains permanently, and we are also concerned that we cannot count on any particular scheduled train actually running. We want to work with you on solving this mobility crisis, but that is possible only if you are forthright with us, your riders, when you think of cutting our transit.

DAVID PETER ALAN, Chair

An early step in Amtrak's plans to rebuild rail infrastructure in the area is replacement of the aging Portal drawbridge in Kearney; the bridge spans the Hackensack River and opens occasionally for marine traffic, but frequently has malfunctioned, leading to delays in train traffic. The current plan is first to replace the existing bridge with a high-level bridge that could accommodate marine traffic without a drawbridge. This first stage is estimated to cost $1.5 billion, and finding financing has been a problem. The bridge is part of Amtrak's Gateway project, which would build a four-track railroad between Newark and New York, including a second Hackensack bridge, two new tunnels under the Hudson, and expansion of Penn Station in Manhattan into the city block to the south of the existing structure.  Advocates of the project thought they had a commitment from Washington to pay for half of it, but President Trump has backed away from that, and the Federal Transit Administration has criticized the project for its lack of local funding participation.

On Wednesday, June 13, the NJ Transit board of directors approved a resolution committing the state, through its Economic Development Authority, to borrow up the $600 million as the state's portion of the new bridge project. The action was reported by Larry Higgs for the Star-Ledger (and printed in the June 14 edition of the paper).  The action was applauded by the Regional Plan Association, which gave credit to NJ Gov. Murphy, and by NJ Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, who said that the commitment would allow the state to refile the project plans with the federal government and would demonstrate that the state is behind the project.

Critics of the plan note that there is very little marine traffic on the Hackensack River; that it has decreased markedly recently and consists only of occasional barges hauling sewage sludge; and say that impact on rail passengers could be made very low simply by negotiating with the barge operators to do their shipping in the middle of the night.

As a federally-mandated deadline of December 31 approaches, NJ Transit's installation of the advanced Positive Train Control (PTC) safety system has been lagging. Originally, a law passed in 2008 required nationwide compliance by the end of 2015, but after widespread protests by the nation's railroads that the deadline was unreasonable, the date was extended by three years.  Further extensions on a case-by-case basis are possible, but the railroad has to show that it is well on the way to completing installation. The cost-effectiveness of PTC has been controversial, but each time a rail accident occurs the result is to mute opposition and solidify the political support for PTC, which is federally-mandated but whose costs are borne entirely by the rail systems that must implement it.

In the New Jersey areat, Amtrak has completed installation of PTC, as has the Philadelphia-area commuter carrier SEPTA.  Installation of PTC on the PATH rail system is continuing, with service interruptions scheduled to facilitate the installation work (see article below). However, NJ Transit's installation has lagged, and the consequences of non-compliance became more significant when Amtrak announced that it might not be able to allow non-compliant equipment to operate on its tracks; Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and New York Penn Station are used by a large fraction of NJ Transit trains. While it seems politically unlikely that Amtrak or the federal government would actually force NJT to stop operating trains on January 1, 2019, the pressure is clearly on NJT management to achieve compliance by the deadline.

At the NJT board of directors meeting on May 9, NJT Executive Director Kevin Corbett said he has verbally warned the railroad's PTC contractor, Parsons Transportation Group, that they must deliver a compliant system by year's end. (Parsons had once had a PTC contract with the Caltrain commuter rail system in suburban San Francisco, but lost it last year due to lack of progress.) The status of NJT's compliance, and Corbett's actions, was reported by Ralph Spielman in the Trains Magazine Newsletter online on May 14; further coverage by Larry Higgs and Jonathan D. Salant appeared on nj.com on May 16 (and in the Star-Ledger on May 17).  Spielman's article reported that, since Corbett's announcement, Parsons is operating two equipment installation facilities, both using multiple work shifts, in an effort to comply. And, writes Spielman, initial field testing has begun on NJT's Morristown Line, on the six mile double-track, electrified stretch between Morristown and Denville.

According to the Higgs/Salant article, as of a March 31 Federal Railroad Administration report, only 172 of 1100 NJT employees have been trained on PTC, just 37 of 124 required radio towers have been installed, and only six miles of track equipped; presumably, this is the Morristown-Denville segment referred to in the Spielman article. Only 13% of PTC hardware has been installed by NJT, ranking NJT as fourth lowest among 26 commuter railroads required to install PTC. The PATH system was 86% complete as of the March report. NJT reportedly has made progress since March, equipping 43 locomotives for PTC, installing 44 radio towers, and training 309 employees; apparently these figures are in addition to the numbers reported by the FRA.

As reported by Spielman, Corbett said that NJT was working closely with the Federal Railroad Administration, Amtrak, and area freight carriers (NJT's Raritan Valley Line uses Conrail freight tracks between Cranford and Newark, which also require PTC compliance). Corbett said, "This is the most complex project I've ever seen."

NJT riders who travel to Hoboken or Newark Penn Station and continue their trip to Manhattan via PATH trains will have to cope with shutdowns on weekends all summer. According to PATH, the shutdowns are necessary to facilitate the installation of Positive Train Control (PTC) equipment, which Federal regulations require for federally-regulated rail systems satisfying certain criteria; the installations are supposed to be completed by the end of 2018, although extensions are possible. PATH had similar closures in 2016 in the first phase of PTC installation. In 2016, PATH operated a special bus service between downtown and midtown Manhattan for passengers who could not travel to or from their desired destination; this year, instead, PATH will provide two-trip Metrocards so passengers can use the subway or regular NYC Transit buses instead. The special Metrocards will have to be used the weekend they are issued.

This year, the first phase of closures will take place the weekends of May 19 and July 7, when the World Trade Center and Exchange Place stations will be closed. Information in published accounts and on the PATH website is incomplete at the time of writing, but it appears that during these weekends PATH trains will operate on two routes: between Newark and Journal Square, and between Journal Square and 33 St, via Hoboken.  Passengers can receive the free two-trip Metrocard at the 33 St PATH station.

PATH's website does not appear yet to have the schedules for the remaining closures, but according to reporting by Patric Villanova in the Jersey Journal, the "uptown" Manhattan PATH stations on the 33 St PATH line will be closed on weekends between July 14 and October 28. On Saturdays, PATH will provide direct service from Hoboken to World Trade Center, which does not normally operate on weekends; but on Sundays, the only way for riders to get from Hoboken to World Trade will be to take a Journal Square-bound PATH train at Hoboken and transfer at Grove Street, often a lengthy journey. Not specifically announced yet, but apparently the free two-trip Metrocard would be available at the World Trade Center PATH terminal on these days.

Not found on the PATH site, but reported in the Jersey Journal article: it is said that on three Sundays, Sept. 15 and 22, and Oct. 13, the Hoboken PATH station will be closed completely.

When New Jersey PATH stations are closed, PATH tickets and passes will be cross-honored on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, apparently so riders can travel between Hoboken, Newport, and Exchange Place PATH stations; it's not clear whether the cross-honoring would be in effect outside this zone.

Service will apparently be normal on the Labor Day weekend.

NJT uses this Amtrak drawbridge in Newark

Bridges on highways need to be safe, and information about their condition is publicly available.  Train bridges need to be safe too, and many of them are very old, some of the oldest structure's in the nation's transportation infrastructure. But, according to reporting by Curtis Tate in the Bergen Record and other Gannett papers (April 30), there is one big difference: NJ Transit refuses to disclose the condition of its bridges, despite reporters' requests through the Freedom of Information Act. NJT cites security concerns in stiffing the requests.  After all, if a bridge were about to fall down . . . it might encourage a terrorist to give it that last shove. NJT's refusal to disclose the information began under the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, and has continued into the Murphy administration, according to Tate's article.  NJT says that the Department of Homeland Security advised that release of bridge information could be used to "identify and exploit vulnerabilities" in the 600 or so rail bridges that NJT maintains.  NJT further cites the 2007 collapse of the I-35W highway bridge in Minneapolis, which killed 13 people, as an example; but that event seems irrelevant, since it was ascribed to construction flaws, not terrorist attack.  In campaigning for office, Gov. Murphy said NJT was "a national disgrace" and also promised more open government, citing NJT's obfuscation of financial data. But the secrecy regarding bridges has continued under Murphy, despite the openness pledge.

The earlier stories prompted an editorial (May 3) in the Star-Ledger, headlined "NJT's dodge on rail safety is disturbing," and quoted NJ Association of Railroad Passengers president Len Resto, "Riders have a right to know the conditions of the entire infrastructure. It allows them to make an informed decision as to whether to ride the system or not. This includes concrete stairs, viaducts, archways, bridge steel, platforms, rail equipment, etc. Whether it's a safety issue or a reliability issue of being (able) to get to work on time, a rider has a right to know as they are paying for their service."

The attempt by reporters to secure rail bridge information continues.  Meanwhile, perhaps rail riders might consider riding a bus instead: buses use highway bridges, and information regarding their condition is readily available.

Advocacy is about more than only technical or political issues.  At the Lackawanna Coalition, we want to help you stay educated, as well as informed, about our transit.

We feature presentations on various topics of interest at the beginning of our meetings, and we have some exciting talks coming up during the next few months.

At our May meeting, which will be held on the 21^st (third Monday), our presenter will be Mike Slack, I.T. Director at NJ Transit. Mike will update us on the agency's latest technical innovations.

Our meeting on June 25^th will feature Samuel Turvey, Chair of the Steering Committee for Rebuild Penn Station. He will give us a report on the efforts of his organization to rebuild the original, magnificent, 1910-vintage Penn Station as a centerpiece of a “new” grandeur for Midtown Manhattan.

On July 23d, we will focus on internal matters, as Chair David Peter Alan presents an overview of our plans for the next three years.

Our presenter on August 27^th will be Legislative Director Sally Gellert, who will give us an introduction to Twitter, tailored for those of us who, unlike Donald Trump, are not regular Twitter users.

We meet at Millburn Town Hall, 375 Millburn Avenue, only a few blocks from the Millburn Station, on the fourth Monday of the month (except when holidays intervene, as one will next month).  We start at 6:45 pm, and we normally adjourn at 9:00.

We are thoroughly familiar with transit in the area, but you don't need to be.  If you are interested in transit, want to learn more about it and want to join us in our efforts to improve our transit, we will be glad to have you.

We invite you to come to a meeting, enjoy an educational presentation, and join us in our efforts to improve the transit that all of us ride.

We always make statements when the New Jersey Transit Board of Directors meets.  The managers, reporters, and other advocates hear what we have to say, too.

You can also make statements at these meetings, but most of them take place at 9:00 in the morning, so it is not always easy to get to Newark at that time.

On Wednesday, May 9th, NJ Transit is giving you an opportunity to be heard in the evening.  The meeting starts at 6:00, and this only happens once a year.  As with all NJ Transit Board meetings, it will take place at NJT Headquarters, located at One Penn Plaza, Newark, behind Penn Station.

So come and make your voice heard.  There is strength in numbers, and we look forward to seeing you there.

In 2017, Amtrak performed major work on the track approaches to New York's Penn Station. For commuters, the required schedule changes, including diversion of weekday Midtown Direct services to Hoboken, amounted to what was popularly called the "Summer from Hell."  This summer, Amtrak's work program at Penn Station will continue, but disruptions will be much less, according to reporting by Patrick McGeehan in the New York Times (April 11). This summer, Amtrak plans to replace sections of Track 19 in the station, a track used only by Long Island Rail Road trains. Some work has been going on since January, and both NJ Transit and the Long Island Rail Road have made schedule changes to accommodate the current work.  LIRR said that its altered schedule will remain in effect through the summer's work, and NJ Transit said that it hadn't yet decided that the altered schedules would continue; the NJT changes affect the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line. But the major diversions of last summer, including trains diverted to Hoboken on the Morris & Essex lines, won't be happening this time around, and other than possibly continuing its current alterations, NJT says no schedule changes are contemplated.

The main effect of this summer's work will be on trains run by Amtrak itself. During the summer, Amtrak plans to rehabilitate the "Empire Connection," a line that connects Penn Station with the rail line to Albany and points west and north of Albany. This connection will be taken out of service for the work, requiring diversion of all Amtrak trains to and from Albany to Grand Central Terminal. It's difficult to service long-distance trains, with their sleeping cars and dining cars, at Grand Central, so for the first time in memory, there will be no direct service from New York to Chicago: passengers will have to travel from Grand Central on coach trains and change at Albany.

In 2016, 27 year old Ramsey resident Thomas "Tommy" Ryan died in a train accident as he was trying to catch a Hoboken-bound train. A bill making its way through the state legislature in Trenton would provide crisis counseling for the families of victims killed in NJ Transit accidents, according to reporting by Tom Nobile (April 10) for the North Jersey Record. Ryan's death was ruled an accident, but the family reported that its interactions with state detectives were "sparse and unsympathetic." Police detectives are the normal point of contact for next of kin in such tragedies. The unhappy experience of Ryan's uncle Jamie Ryan, which included difficulty in securing the return of Tommy Ryan's personal effects, led Jamie Ryan to launch a personal crusade, which included lobbying then-governor Chris Christie and state Sen. Gerry Cardinale (R-Demarest), who sponsored the bill, S-862.  The bill would provide aid for the relatives of anyone injured or killed in an accident involving NJT trains or buses, provides for skilled counselors who would interact with family, and the return of personal belongings. The bill cleared the Senate Transportation Committee in late March and currently awaits action by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. Meanwhile, NJT has acted to improve safety at the site of the accident, the Main Street grade crossing in Ramsey, including improved signals and audible warnings, and "gate skirts" which drop down and discourage pedestrians from ducking underneath lowered gates.