(The following article by Larry Higgs was posted on the Asbury Park Press website on September 14.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Former Transportation Commissioner Louis Gambaccini, one of the creators of NJ Transit, remembered that he got the idea for a state mass transit network after some particularly bad train trips to the Shore.
On Wednesday, Gambaccini’s name was put on a nine-story monument, NJ Transit’s headquarters building in downtown Newark, in recognition for unifying a bunch of bankrupt bus lines and railroads into the nation’s third-largest mass transit agency.
“I used to commute to the Jersey Shore. The disruptions of service (on the Jersey Central and Pennsylvania railroads) drove me crazy,” said Gambaccini, 75, after the ceremony. “The railroads didn’t want to be in the passenger business and deliberately tried to make it bad.”
Gambaccini was transportation commissioner under Gov. Brendan Byrne for 3 1/2 years. In addition to getting the state’s first successful transportation bond issue passed in 1979, he and other DOT officials wrote a policy paper that led to the creation of NJ Transit.
“His most memorable was called “The Horror System,’ which culminated in the legislation that created NJ Transit in 1979,” said George Warrington, NJ Transit executive director and former Amtrak president. “The concept of a modern, reliable, well-connected transit system was a vision only in Lou’s mind (at that time).”
Gov. Corzine attested firsthand to what the commuting life was like in the pre-NJ Transit days. Corzine said he was a regular commuter on the Morris & Essex Lines, run by the Erie Lackawanna Railroad in the 1970s.
“I know, as a former commuter in the 1970s, we had chaos, financial instability and a lack of planning,” Corzine said. “Now, we have a remarkable transit system.”
Gambaccini said he got into public transportation almost by accident when he was hired by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to run the bankrupt Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, which became today’s PATH system. Gambaccini said he learned his craft from great leaders such as former Port Authority director Austin Tobin.
“I take my hat off to the people I’ve worked with over the past 27 years,” Gambaccini said. “The professional and operational staff here worked a miracle.”