(The following article by Khurram Saeed was posted on the Journal News website on June 20.)
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Metro-North Railroad and NJ Transit yesterday approved a new contract that ensures that NJ Transit will transport nearly 3,000 train riders a day from Rockland and Orange counties until 2012.
NJ Transit will receive about $2 million more each year from Metro-North to cover operating expenses and infrastructure improvements, while Metro-North has been guaranteed it can add service on the Port Jervis Line.
Metro-North is responsible for providing passenger train service in New York. It has contracted with NJ Transit to deliver the service since 1983, when two rail companies took over Conrail’s commuter rail service in the region.
NJ Transit provides commuter service in New York on the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley lines.
Metro-North sets the fares and receives all revenue from Metro-North stations in New York.
The new agreement is good for seven years, retroactive to mid-2005, when the last deal expired.
Under the new deal, Metro-North will pay about $1.3 million more each year to NJ Transit to cover operating expenses, but that will be adjusted for ridership, inflation and other costs.
This year, Metro-North will pay NJ Transit $21.3 million for operating the service in New York.
Metro-North also agreed to pay $690,000 a year — up from $500,000 — for infrastructure improvements on the two lines, such as for signals, as well as for maintaining the Hoboken terminal.
In return, Metro-North has been guaranteed it can add two new rush-hour trains on the Port Jervis Line. There’s no timetable for when that might begin, but Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said it was important to secure space on the line.
“There’s only so much track capacity, and this guarantees us some of that capacity,” she said.
After September 2007, Metro-North plans to introduce weekend, reverse-commute and midday service on the Pascack Valley Line. Four passing tracks are being installed in Nanuet.
Orrin Getz, the Rockland coordinator of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, said he doubted express trains would come to the Pascack Valley Line because of track constraints.
“They will get the off-peak service, and that’s important, but we will not get the rush-hour service,” said the New City resident, who takes the train daily from Nanuet.
In separate meetings yesterday, Metro-North’s committee of the MTA board and NJ Transit’s board of directors each voted unanimously to approve the deal.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority still must approve the agreement, which is expected to happen at its June 28 meeting.
Each day, about 835 riders use the Pascack Valley Line, which stops in Spring Valley, Nanuet and Pearl River. About 2,150 people travel daily on the Port Jervis Line, which stops in Sloatsburg and Suffern, but the vast majority of its riders are from Orange County. NJ Transit owns the Suffern train station, so those riders do not count toward Metro-North’s total.