TRENTON, N.J. — The winding, 34-mile Southern New Jersey Light Rail Transit System connecting Camden and Trenton has the potential to revive riverfront towns, generate development, boost businesses, and increase property values, according to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“As with all light-rail lines, they’re business magnets, and wherever there are terminals, they tend to attract businesses,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Commerce Bank.
The vision behind the $604 million project — set to begin service next summer — is to link communities along the Delaware River to employment centers and recreational venues in Camden and Trenton.
But detractors say the project, now mired in partisan politics and a legal fight, is a boondoggle. Critics also complain that a lack of service at night might provide less-than-seamless travel.
And last month, Southern New Jersey Light Rail Group L.L.C., the consortium building the rail line, sued NJ Transit, seeking more than $100 million in additional payments to complete the project.
“This is a case of pork barrel — of spending the money and hoping something good will come out of it,” said James A. Dunn, professor of public policy and administration at Rutgers University-Camden.
“It’s also an issue of regional equity between the south and north since New Jersey Transit was spending so much on light rail in the north.”
The Democratic-led Assembly is scheduled to hold a hearing next month to investigate cost overruns and construction delays.
Despite the problems, many local officials and business owners are betting the line will breathe new life into their dormant riverfront towns.
One of those is Delanco, a Burlington County township at the convergence of Rancocas Creek and the Delaware River.
The community of about 3,200 has no downtown business district, but developers are starting to take notice. The Newtown Landing Project was recently built with 250 senior-housing units in anticipation of the rail line.
“I’d like to think that new industries will relocate along the corridor because public transportation will come into play,” Mayor John Browne said.
A model developed by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission projected about 9,300 trips per day during the rail line’s first full year, and 16,300 by 2020.
Trains traveling between 25 and 60 m.p.h. will leave every 15 minutes during peak time, and every 30 minutes in nonpeak times.
“The faster the transportation, usually, the more impact it has,” said J. William Vigrass, project manager with Marlton-based Hill International Inc., which is considering development along the track. “It gets their [developers’] attention.”
This promise of development comes after mega-malls and big-box stores, such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart, have siphoned business away from the river towns.
Luxury apartments are envisioned by Anthony L. Marchetta, vice president of LCOR Inc., headquartered in Berwyn, Chester County.
His firm has completed 200 luxury apartments in South Orange, Essex County, within 100 yards of NJ Transit’s Midtown Station, and is building 500 luxury apartments in White Plains, N.Y., near a rail line.
“If you can live in New Jersey along the Delaware waterfront and hop on the light-rail line and be in Philadelphia within a half-hour to 45 minutes, that will make it a reasonable commute,” Marchetta said.
Patrick McGovern, 37, chief architect for a software consulting company in Manhattan, said he planned to ride the light rail from Trenton to business meetings at his firm’s Mount Holly office.
“It’s a good thing if it will service that area,” said McGovern, a resident of Yardley, Bucks County.
>From a window inside his Broad Street Pub in Palmyra, Joe Hartman has watched construction crews finish one of the line’s 20 stations about 70 feet away. He’s hopeful about new customers.
“They can see the pub upon boarding the train, and again when getting off the train,” Hartman said.
Home owners also may benefit: Studies have shown rail systems boost property values.
In 1972, three years after the PATCO High-Speed Line began operation, a University of Pennsylvania study found that the value of real estate along the PATCO corridor had increased. Another study, by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, found rising values along SEPTA’s Regional Rail lines in Pennsylvania.
Developers and real estate agents say rail extensions increase demand for homes. For example, the Hamilton Township stop in Mercer County, added by NJ Transit in 1999, “made northern Burlington County an attractive residential location for people who wanted to commute to New York,” Marchetta said. “The same thing will happen if the new light rail is tied in with the train station in Trenton.”
Many state workers live in Burlington County and work in Trenton, making them a potential market for the new line.
But some caution that inequities exist along the track, and that a struggling city such as Camden would remain a hard sell to developers and visitors.
“If you have economic problems in deteriorating areas, you cannot just put in a light-rail line and expect everything will turn around and there will be an economic boom,” said Vukan Vuchic, who teaches urban transportation at Penn.
Others have questioned the line’s hours of operation. Conrail sold the track to NJ Transit, which can’t use the line from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. because of freight traffic. This rules out the light-rail line as an option for patrons of evening Tweeter Center concerts in Camden or evening minor-league baseball games at Waterfront Park in Trenton.
Getting to work by rail in some places, such as Pennsauken, which has 14 industrial parks that jut off Route 130, will also pose a problem. That key artery is about a mile or two east of the track.
“Unless your employer is running some type of shuttle or van, people won’t have a way to get to work,” said Assemblyman Jack Connors, a Democrat whose district includes Pennsauken and who has been critical of the project.
Despite its shortcomings, Ruth Medina, 35, a factory worker for Ram Electronics in Pennsauken, was looking forward to its debut.
“Sure, I’ll ride it,” she said as she boarded a NJ Transit bus with her son Walbis, 13, in Pennsauken. They were heading to the Cherry Hill Mall, requiring a bus transfer and more than an hour. “It will be a lot faster.”