(The following story on Joe Malinconico appeared on the Star-Ledger website on April 23.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Commuter Michelle Alexander has given up trying to keep track of all the recent changes in NJ Transit’s train schedules.
Four times in the past six months, the railroad has put out new timetables, with revisions affecting tens of thousands of passengers.
“These changes are ridiculous,” said Alexander, who rides the Northeast Corridor line from Edison. “Now I just show up at 7:20 a.m. and hope that a train comes soon.”
Along with other riders, Alexander said she would prefer if NJ Transit would work on easing overcrowding on the trains and on operating them more reliably, instead of tinkering with the schedules.
But transit officials say the new timetables that take effect Sunday will do exactly that, by shifting passenger loads and by averting conflicts that sometimes cause one train to delay others.
“Before we made the schedule changes, we took input from our customers and analyzed our crowding,” said Jim Price, NJ Transit’s general superintendent of rail operations. “We had to improve trip times and our on-time performance.”
The schedule changes — which affect the Northeast Corridor and the North Jersey Coast, Morris and Essex, Bergen, Main, Port Jervis and Pascack Valley lines — will come in several forms. NJ Transit is adding eight new trains, revising the stops made by about 20 others, switching times for about 50 trains and discontinuing one.
Normally, NJ Transit makes systemwide changes in its rail schedules twice a year — in the spring and the fall — and also fine- tunes the North Jersey Coast Line schedules to accommodate vacationers heading to the Shore.
But the agency has revised its schedules a few extra times recently to accommodate last December’s opening of the massive Secaucus Junction train station, where commuters can make connections among most of the railroad’s main lines.
“They’re adjusting for new pieces and new parts of the puzzle,” said Doug Bowen, president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers. “We approve. We think that’s a good thing.”
“This schedule is really the final part of the ramp-up that we’ve done for Secaucus,” NJ Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett Hackett said.
Some Manhattan-bound riders were hoping their trains would no longer stop at Secaucus under the new schedules. They complain that the extra stop slows their trips and benefits only a few riders.
“If one person gets on all week, it’s a miracle,” said Audrey Kuchtyak, who takes the train into New York from Woodbridge.
“These are big trains,” Price said. “Someone might only see one person get on their car. But there are people getting on the other cars. We have these stops for a reason.”
Perhaps the best news for Northeast Corridor commuters, Price said, is the rescheduling of a New York-bound Amtrak train so that it leaves Philadelphia five minutes earlier, at 6:30 a.m. That will reduce the number of times the Amtrak train causes delays for five NJ Transit trains heading to Manhattan, which now happens several mornings a month, Price said.
For Midtown Direct morning rush-hour riders, NJ Transit is revising the stations where three trains make their stops and is creating a new train to alleviate overcrowding. Two of the trains are now standing-room-only when they cross into New York and the third is at 91 percent capacity, Price said.
After the changes, the four trains will run at an average of 82 percent capacity, Price said.
But one of the riders affected by the Midtown Direct changes is not too happy.
Tom Groppe hops on his Midtown Direct train at Short Hills at 7:32 a.m. — which is its second stop under the current schedules. He always gets a seat for the 40-minute ride into Manhattan.
But that train will no longer stop at Short Hills and instead Groppe will have to switch to a later train — one that has already made many stops before it gets to Short Hills. He figures he won’t get a seat anymore and is thinking about biking to the Millburn station to catch a different train.
“Now, out of the blue, NJ Transit is making a schedule change, sending an already overcrowded train my way each morning and upsetting a situation they had fixed. This is absolutely infuriating,” Groppe said.
Some NJ Transit riders — especially those who take the Montclair-Boonton line to Hoboken — were disappointed when they checked the schedules and noticed that their trains were staying the same.
In the morning rush, commuter Patricia Post said there is an hour gap between trains heading directly to Hoboken.
“We have been totally ignored regarding this schedule,” said Post. “We really need more direct trains during rush hour. Whenever a new schedule comes out, I hope that there is a change for the better, but to be honest with you, I don’t see any change whatsoever.”
The new schedules are available at www.njtransit.com, the agency’s Web site.