(The following story by Tom Davis appeared at NorthJersey.com on May 6, 2009.)
Train and bus routes could be eliminated if NJ Transit fails to shrink its staff and services enough to make up a $62 million shortfall in Governor Corzine’s proposed budget.
Cuts have already resulted in the cancellation of midday service to Hoboken on the Morris and Essex lines and 20 percent fewer printed timetables for commuters.
Still, the agency has declined to raise fares and is forging ahead with a near-$10 billion capital improvement program that includes a new $8.7 billion train tunnel to Manhattan.
Rich Sarles, NJ Transit’s executive director, said eliminating trains and buses is a “last resort.”
“We’re continuously looking at ways to reduce our costs without impacting service,” Sarles said.
If Corzine’s budget is approved, the shortfall will reduce NJ Transit’s state funding to its 2008 level.
Sarles said the project work will continue, saying the 17 percent decrease in annual state aid to NJ Transit would only affect the agency’s operations budget. But it already has taken some steps to reduce spending, including:
* Cutting 140 administrative positions through attrition — such as accountant jobs that were considered unnecessary after technology was introduced to streamline payroll.
* Consolidating office space, which saved $500,000.
Beyond that, Sarles said, he doesn’t know what additional steps NJ Transit may take — though he said the agency has no plans to scale back maintenance and repair.
“That’s a continuous investment that never ends,” he said. “To the extent you don’t [maintain operations], it can negatively impact your operations.”
The agency’s streamlining has only affected positions and services that are considered redundant, underutilized or unnecessary, Sarles said.
About a decade ago, 12 cents of every NJ Transit dollar once covered administrative expenses, said Lynn Bowersox, NJ Transit’s assistant executive director. Now the costs are down to 8 cents on the dollar.
For capital projects, the agency has asked for $3 billion in federal funding to help complete the tunnel project by 2017. The Port Authority and other state resources will pay for the rest.
The agency, also helped by $130 million in federal stimulus funding, plans to start work on the project by the end of spring.
“That’s what the stimulus was designed to do — and the basic goal is to preserve jobs and create jobs,” Sarles said. “It also allows us to do a number of things that we had moved along but didn’t have the funds to continue.”
Critics, however, say additional personnel will be needed to run those expanded operations — and rate hikes and service cuts will be needed to pay for them.
David Peter Alan of the New Jersey Association of Rail Passengers called the tunnel project “an outrageous waste of money, especially now when state employees face the prospect of being laid off.”
Alan has complained that the tunnel, known as the Access to the Region’s Core, will be built too deep to serve customers who are handicapped and can’t handle tall escalators or staircases.
“We must all spend our money wisely, and NJT is no exception,” he said.
Riders on the Main-Bergen Line said they worry they’ll be affected by any operational cuts, saying the line is always among the last to get new equipment. Whenever NJ Transit slashes its budget, Vincent Arscott of Ho-Ho-Kus said, “this line always gets screwed.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball, but I could imagine fewer trains, fewer conductors and higher fares,” said Joe Coppola of Ridgewood.
For now, NJ Transit officials say, they are focusing on meeting the demand for potential increases in train and bus ridership, while also keeping a lid on spending.
NJ Transit officials expect demand to increase if gasoline spikes at $4 per gallon again. Ridership on NJ Transit rail systems increased 4.7 percent last year, though it’s dipped slightly this year as oil prices have dropped.
“It’s a substantial amount of cost reductions just through internal squeezing before we get to some of these other options,” Bowersox said.
Federal stimulus money, meanwhile, will accelerate capital projects that will help rehabilitate and expand aging infrastructure, Sarles said. The stimulus funding includes $30 million for the rehabilitation of the Lower Hack Drawbridge between Jersey City and Kearny, $25 million to help upgrade the Morristown Line signal system and $17.3 million to improve traffic near Newark Penn Station.
At the same time, NJ Transit has added weekend service on the Northeast Corridor line to address overcrowding, and added a morning, peak-hour Midtown Direct train from Maplewood and South Orange to New York.
“We made all those kinds of adjustments and we made adjustments in service,” Sarles said.
Some transportation advocates say the expansion projects will only help a system that’s reached capacity.
“We need to encourage people to go to work, but we can’t do that when the trains are full,” said Zoe Baldwin, Tri-State Transportation Campaign spokeswoman.