(The following story by Larry Higgs appeared on the Asbury Park Press website on July 14, 2010.)
NEWARK — Switch off the cell phone, turn down the volume on the computer, and if you could keep that conversation to a whisper, that would be nice, too.
Starting after Labor Day, that will be the code of conduct on NJ Transit’s “Quiet Commute” designed to put a little civility back in the rough-and-grumble world of the workday commute. Translated to Jersey-ese, that means “Please, shut up.”
Even NJ Transit’s new, incoming top cop, gives the idea a thumbs up after taking Amtrak’s version of the quiet commute.
“I’ve taken the train to Washington, D.C., and it’s nice to sit in the quiet car; it’s a nice oasis,” said Christopher Trucillo, incoming chief of NJ Transit’s police force. “I think it will go over well.”
The quiet-car policy officially starts Sept. 9 on the first and last cars on Northeast Corridor 3900 series express trains.
Even Executive Director James Weinstein couldn’t resist having some fun with the idea, by making librarian like “shushing” noises as he handed out “Quiet Commute” business cards which explain the concept on the back, after Wednesdays board meeting.
“‘It’s the thing people ask for the most often,” Weinstein said.
The blabber-free zone isn’t new. The concept started in late 1999 after a group of regular Amtrak commuters asked their conductor if one car of their early morning Philadelphia-Washington train could be designated “cell phone-free.” The conductor agreed, and Amtrak quickly expanded the concept, NJ Transit officials said. Shortly after, most weekday Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor featured quiet cars.
NJ Transit isn’t the first commuter system to try out quiet cars, but it is the largest out of the other transit systems, which include Pennsylvania’s SEPTA, Virginia Railway Express, a commuter line in Maryland and two California rail systems, Altamont Commuter Express and the Capital Corridor.
Train crews won’t be expected to play the role of school bus driver, but conductors will inform customers of quiet commute expectations by handing out specially designed business cards that explain the program in English and Spanish.
Both Weinstein and Trucillo said they expect there will be self policing by passengers on the quiet cars.
“On Amtrak it gets self enforced, and the cards are one way (of doing it),” Weinstein said. “It’s not a question of the train crews sitting there and enforcing it, we like to do it gently — this is a quiet car, please use your cell phone elsewhere.”
This isn’t the first time NJ Transit has tried to curb riders behaving badly. In 2003, NJ Transit launched its second courtesy campaign since the mid-1990s, by trying to moderate the pet peeves of riders, which were picked by a committee of riders.
Seat hogs, litter bugs and, yes, people who carry on high-decibel cell phone conversations were targets of edgy posters displayed on trains at that time. That campaign came after an increase in rider complaints, officials said.
The quiet commute cars will operate for 90 days, after which NJ Transit officials will survey riders before deciding the program’s future. Weinstein is optimistic it will be embraced.
“I expect it to be successful,” he said.