(The following story by Larry Higgs appeared on the News Tribune website on December 18.)
EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. — With NJ Transit setting another record for the number of people riding its trains and buses, the agency also has to find ways to keep from being a victim of its success, transit advocates said.
At the same time the ridership figures were announced Wednesday, NJ Transit board members approved a $244 million contract to buy new electric locomotives to haul new multilevel rail cars. That move was cited as an example of steps the commuter agency is taking to prevent growth in ridership from overwhelming NJ Transit, spokeswoman Penny Bassett Hackett said.
But advocates said it will take some serious expansion of NJ Transit’s system to meet increasing demand and to give riders more options.
“It’s time to stop reacting and time to start meeting the curve, if not getting ahead of it,” said Douglas Bowen, New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers. “It (NJ Transit) now has a unified network, it’s time to start growing.”
Some of those proposed expansions are on the table. Studies are under way to restore passenger service on several existing or dormant rail lines, including:
The Monmouth-Ocean-Middlesex Line, for which three routes are being studied. All three routes start in Lakehurst. The Monmouth Junction route would serve western Monmouth County and join Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor tracks in South Brunswick. Two other proposed routes would join the North Jersey Coast Line at either Matawan or Red Bank. With new ridership projections completed, NJ Transit officials plan to meet with officials of municipalities where stations and parking lots would be located.
The West Trenton Line would return passenger service to a 27-mile existing freight line in Mercer and Somerset counties, paralleling Route 206. It would join the Raritan Valley line near Bound Brook. The required Draft Environmental Impact Statement was released last month and the public comment period continues until Jan. 15.
Extending the Raritan Valley Line, an idea still in the beginning phases, would restore passenger service west of High Bridge to the Pennsylvania border in an effort to relieve traffic volume on Interstate 78. It was one of several recommendations in a study of the I-78 corridor.
Bowen said that such expansions will not only improve travel options to New York but provide commuters with more options when traveling within the state.
“NJ Transit has to look intra-Jersey and that includes (lines like) MOM,” Bowen said. “We’ve got to stop focusing on the one-seat ride to Manhattan. Rail can do so much more than that.”
Bowen said he’s heard stories about commuters who are going to some extremes to use mass transit for in-state commutes to suburban workplaces.
“I’m hearing stories about people leaving a second car (overnight) at their morning destination station, so they can drive to work from that station,” Bowen said. “It shows that people want solutions and want options.”
Serving the suburban workplace has been a challenge, since office parks may be several miles from the nearest train station or bus stop. Some older office complexes weren’t physically designed to accommodate buses, transit advocates and officials said.
“We’ve got to grow the product,” Bowen said. “We need more than arteries, we need capillaries.”
Those capillaries to which Bowen referred most likely would be some type of van or bus shuttle between stations and workplaces. Some counties, such as Middlesex and Somerset have partnered to provide shuttles between train stations in New Brunswick and Bound Brook and nearby office and industrial campuses.
NJ Transit also has had a community-shuttle program, giving minibuses to municipalities to shuttle people to and from the local train station, instead of building costly parking lots.
NJ Transit has been acquiring new locomotives, rail cars and buses over the last several years to handle demand. Earlier this year, NJ Transit board members opted to buy more multilevel rail cars, instead of rebuilding single level cars from the 1990s.
Other steps needed to accommodate the growth could include changing how the railroad operates, such as “zoning” different rail lines, so peak hour trains don’t stop at every station, said Ralph Braskett, Committee for Better Transit NJ coordinator.
Such an operation might have one train stopping at several high-volume stations and then running express to its final destination, he said. The busy Northeast Corridor Line would be a prime candidate for this type of operation, followed by the North Jersey Coast Line, if the number of riders on that line grows, he said.
He also suggested lowering off-peak fares again by 25 percent to encourage riders to travel outside peak hours.