(The following appeared on the Star-Ledger website on October 1, 2009.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Broadway just got a little closer for residents in three Essex County towns.
Beginning Nov. 8, weekend train service will be available to take riders from Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield to New York City.
The long-awaited weekend service will start on the Montclair-Boonton Line from Bay Street Station in Montclair to Newark and Hoboken terminals.
Trains will operate about every two hours to and from Hoboken, with stops at Bay Street, Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, Watsessing Avenue, Newark Broad Street and Hoboken. Riders will be able to connect at Newark Broad Street to Midtown Direct service to New York or to points west on the Morris & Essex Lines.
“This is huge for the people of Essex County,” Bloomfield Mayor Raymond McCarthy said. “This is huge for the people of Bloomfield, Glen Ridge and Montclair. The convenience of being able to go into Manhattan on the weekend and not having to take your car is enormous.”
Trains are to run from around 7 a.m. to a little past midnight, and the parking garage at the Bay Street Station will be free through the end of the year.
Standing on the platform of Bay Street Station yesterday, NJ Transit Executive Director Richard Sarles estimated the trip to Newark to be 13 minutes and Hoboken another 20 minutes.
Sarles said NJ Transit was able to work out the service at no additional cost to taxpayers by extending an existing train already running between Newark and Hoboken.
An off-peak round-trip fare from Montclair to Newark is $2.75, before connecting to Midtown Direct. To Hoboken, it’s $7.75.
NJ Transit has no prediction on the number of people who would use the weekend trains, but Sarles said Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield wanted the service. “We are looking forward to the residents of these three towns to make it catch on very quickly,” he said.
For now, weekend trains will be available only at Bay Street Station in Montclair, a long, narrow community that developed during the Victorian age with rail stations a mile apart. The Bay Street Station is at the southern end of the business district in the community that is home to a half-dozen train stations.
“It is a step in the right direction,” said rail proponent Phil Craig of Montclair. “But the goal is hourly service extending to Montclair State University.”
NJ Transit estimated that running the trains hourly would have cost an extra $500,000 a year.
Craig said the plan is to install rail crossing gates that block drivers from trying to get around them. With those gates, there would be no need for trains to sound their horns at crossings and the existing 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. quiet hours for trains could be expanded to 24 hours, he said.
Montclair Mayor Jerry Fried said the trains would take the uncertainty out of his regular weekend trips to theaters less than 20 miles away in New York City.
“We leave at 6:15 when we’re going to an 8 o’clock show, just because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “The trains are convenient, they’re clean, they’re predictable.”
Craig has lived in town since 1980 and said he also will use the weekend rail service to visit Manhattan.
He has tried driving to the city, “but every time I do so, I end up spending 45 minutes trying to get through the Lincoln Tunnel, then paying $20 for a parking garage.”
So, what are his plans for Nov. 8?
“I am going to be one of the first riders,” he vowed.