(The following story by Richard Pearsall appeared on the Courier-Post website on February 3. Bob Daniels is Legislative Representative of Division 373 in Trenton, N.J.)
CAMDEN, N.J. — Tormented by problems with crossing gates, NJ Transit on Monday abandoned plans to begin operating the River Line on Feb. 15, instead setting March 14 as the new target date to open the Camden-to-Trenton passenger service.
And when the light rail line does begin operating, it will have fewer trains, at least for the first two months, the agency said.
Trains will run every 30 minutes during rush hours, instead of every 15 minutes, as originally planned.
That will enable train operators to gain more experience before moving to a schedule that requires more complex train movements, officials said.
Problems at 18 of the 70 grade crossings on the 34-mile route are the main cause of the delay, said Lynn Bowersox, a spokeswoman for the mass transit agency.
The problems mostly involve gates coming down at inopportune moments, not gates failing to drop as a train passes, she said.
The foul-ups have created local traffic tie-ups, Bowersox said, and prevented NJ Transit’s general contractor from conducting the full-service, full-schedule testing necessary before the trains can begin to run for real.
NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington expressed frustration with the contractor – who began testing the line more than a year ago – for failing to correct the problems and conduct the full-scale “dress rehearsal” in time.
But, he added, “I won’t force them out of the gate when I know it will result in unreliable service and disappointed customers.”
Neither NJ Transit nor the contractor, the South Jersey Rail Group, would address the cost of the delays or who would be held responsible for them.
“At this point, we are both focused on getting service up and running,” Bowersox said.
Reaction to the delay was generally subdued in the Burlington County towns along the route, where most residents said they are curious about the line but not relying on it.
Matthew Kaelin, a Palmyra resident who is studying business at Rutgers-Camden, was more animated in his response to news that the line will not start until next month.
“They can wait until the next millennium as far as I’m concerned,” said Kaelin, 44. “It would drop me two blocks from campus but I’ll never ride it for all the inconvenience it has caused.”
Nine new sets of traffic signals and gates installed between Palmyra and neighboring Riverton have angered residents in those two communities.
Neither Bowersox nor Howard Menaker, a spokesman for Rail Group, could say precisely what the problem is at the grade crossings.
Bowersox identified “integration of electronic components” as part of the challenge.
Menaker said there were a variety of small problems still to be ironed out, as well as some “coordination of scheduling” with other trains and buses that NJ Transit was still working on.
Bob Daniels, a lobbyist for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said that the systems used to prompt gate closings today are “great – able to detect motion, predict speed.”
“The only problem is they’re not dependable,” he said.
The delay announced Monday was the latest for a line that was originally scheduled to open Jan 1, 2003.
The contractor hired to build and operate the line, South Jersey Rail Group, is a consortium consisting of Bechtel, the huge multinational construction company, and Bombardier, the French-based company that will supply the cars and operate the line for 10 years.
NJ Transit and Rail Group already are locked in a dispute over $100 million in cost overruns that each blames on the other.
The cost of the line, originally estimated at $450 million, is now expected to be in excess of $1 billion, a figure that does not include the $100 million in dispute.
The line is projected to attract fewer than 6,000 fares a day (3,000 round trips) when it opens, less than a sixth of the ridership on the PATCO Hi-Speedline that runs from Lindenwold into Philadelphia.
It will run from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and charge a flat rate of $1.10, far less than the fare for buses that travel the same route.
To get to Philadelphia, riders will have to get off at the Walter Rand Transportation Center in Camden and board the PATCO line at an additional cost of $1.70.