(The Jersey Journal posted the following article on its website on October 23.)
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — NJ Transit has agreed to hold a public hearing on the discontinuation of its Boonton to Hoboken rail line, more than a year after the route was shut down.
In a settlement reached Tuesday that ends a lawsuit brought by an independent rail operator, the state transit agency has been ordered to hold one hearing before the end of the year on its decision to stop service to the Arlington Depot station in Kearny, the Rowe Street station in Bloomfield and the Benson Street station in Glen Ridge.
The hearing, a date for which has not been set, must be held in Kearny and notice must be given 10 days before.
“This is a victory for the passengers,” said Jim Wilson, the head of New York & Greenwood Lake Railway, which sued NJ Transit for failing to give notice before closing the stations in September 2002 when it opened the Midtown Direct line via the Montclair Connection.
Wilson said his company will seek to run a Boonton to Hoboken line itself and that he hopes the hearing will demonstrate that there is still a need for that service. He was joined in the lawsuit – heard by state Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Olivieri, sitting in Jersey City – by four commuters who once used the line, two of them from Kearny.
A spokeswoman for NJ Transit, Penny Bassett-Hacket, declined to comment on the settlement.
The trial began Oct. 14 after last-minute settlement talks broke down and testimony continued this week.
In his order authorizing the settlement, Olivieri said the meeting should last about three hours, the majority of it in the evening. The settlement does not require NJ Transit to allow any company to restart service along the stretch of idle tracks, which the agency leases from Norfolk Southern, a Virginia-based rail company.
But Wilson said the settlement is the first step in what he hopes will the eventually lead to New York & Greenwood Lake Railway running the service.