(The Neward Star-Ledger published the following article by Joe Malinconico on its website on April 25.)
NEWARK, N.J. — NJ Transit on Sunday will launch its largest increase in weekend rail service since the mid-1990s, adding 14 new trains on the Northeast Corridor line between Trenton and New York Penn Station.
In addition to the increase in weekend service, the agency on Monday will add 11
weekday trains and begin significant changes in schedules for riders using the western stations on the Montclair-Boonton Line.
Weekday riders on the Northeast Corridor will get nine extra trains. The new schedules also include a new Midtown Direct train at 4:43 p.m. from New York to Summit and a new 7:24 a.m. weekday train from Denville to Hoboken on the Montclair-Boonton branch.
On weekends, 11 trains are being added to the Sunday schedule and three to the Saturday routes, with the earliest addition running at 6:32 a.m. from Trenton and the latest at 10:57 p.m. from New York.
“This shows that NJ Transit is continuing to be serious about attracting what we call the discretionary riders,” said Doug Bowen, vice president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers. “The commuters don’t have much choice. Joe Briefcase and the Dashing Dans and Danielles, they’re always going to take the trains. But this a good way to build up ridership off-peak and on the weekends.”
NJ Transit expects to spend about $2.4 million a year on salaries for the crews that will work the extra trains. Officials said the locomotives and passenger cars already were available in the agency’s fleet.
NJ Transit’s weekend ridership has grown by 8 percent over the past year, agency spokeswoman Penny Bassett Hackett said.
“If you’ve ever ridden into the city on a weekend, you’ll see those trains are mobbed,” said James Greller, executive transportation planner at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a former NJ Transit official.
Greller praised the agency’s executive director, George Warrington, for squeezing extra trains into crowded schedules. But he also said officials ought to push ahead with starting weekend service on the Montclair Direct line into New York.
“The taxpayers spent a lot of money for those infrastructure improvements, I’d like to see the Montclair Connection run on weekends,” Greller said.
Bassett Hackett said the agency has no plans for weekend trains on Montclair Direct. When the project was built, officials said, the agency reached an “understanding” with the town not to run trains into the city on Saturdays and Sundays.
Although the Montclair-Boonton line is getting just one extra train, NJ Transit has decided to overhaul schedules for that branch to address complaints from passengers.
At present, passengers on diesel trains that run on the line west of Montclair make the switch to New York-bound electric trains at the Montclair Heights station. There, the transfer takes an average of 13 minutes, largely because the electric trains have to wait for the diesel trains to clear the tracks before they can pull into the station.
Starting Monday, the transfers will be done at the new station being built at Montclair State University in Little Falls. There, the electric trains will be parked and waiting when the diesel trains pull in, which officials said should reduce the average time for making the transfers to four minutes.
Officials emphasized that the Montclair State station is not yet complete and will only be used for the transfers. Passengers will have to wait until the spring of 2004 before they can use that station for arrivals and departures.