(The following article by Greg Clary was posted on the White Plains Journal News website on January 28.)
NANUET, N.J. — NJ Transit expects to start construction in the spring on special train tracks that should allow midday, reverse commuting and weekend service for riders on the Pascack Valley Line by the middle of 2007.
Currently, the single-track line allows only one train in one direction at a time because there are no passing sidings available.
Half-mile long sidings are due to be built in three locations along the rail line that serves Pearl River, Nanuet and Spring Valley stations.
The nearest siding is planned for an undeveloped area behind the Wyeth property in Nanuet. Two other half-mile-long sidings are planned at Hasbrouck Heights and Hackensack, N.J. A fourth siding, about two miles long, will be built in East Rutherford, N.J.
The cost of the entire project is about $39 million, split between NJ Transit and Metro-North Railroad, which is responsible for passenger trains in New York and contracts that service NJ Transit.
“This is excellent news for the communities along the Pascack Valley Line,” said Dan Stessel, an NJ Transit spokesman. “It will make a big difference in terms of service.”
Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the plan was to add six off-peak round trips on weekdays and 11 round-trips on each weekend day.
“That’s a lot,” said Alma Weinstein, a Bardonia resident who commutes on the Pascack Valley line from Nanuet. “I thought it would be about four trips on the weekend. That’s going to encourage people not to drive. It’s so much more comfortable taking the train.”
There is currently only one midday train, leaving workers to find their own way home if they have to leave at an unusual time.
Leaving late from work isn’t much better.
Weinstein said she often works beyond the 8:20 p.m. train out of Hoboken. The next train doesn’t leave that station until 10:55 p.m. because the earlier run has to venture all the way to Spring Valley and return before another train can go north.
“If I don’t get the 8:20, I have to go to Suffern or to Tarrytown and then get someone to pick me up,” Weinstein said. “You can get home, but it’s a pain.”