(The following article by Tom Feeney was posted on the Newark Star-Ledger website on October 25.)
NEWARK, N.J. — More than 4,000 new seats will be available on rush-hour trains when a new NJ Transit rail schedule takes effect Sunday.
The transit agency will add morning service on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast and Main/Bergen County lines and restore an evening train on the Morris & Essex Lines. The ripple effect of the changes will be felt throughout the third-largest transit system in the country.
Commuters in Somerset and Union counties, for instance, will see no direct impact on the Raritan Valley Line, but the new trains on the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast lines will give them additional opportunities for getting from Newark into New York.
“We do systemwide timetable changes twice a year, in April and October, usually within a week of the (daylight savings) time change,” NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said. “We use that as an opportunity to identify particular routes in need of additional seats or trains to meet demands. Where we have the ability to meet that demand, we do.”
The brunt of the impact of this round of changes will be felt early in the morning. The two new trains on the Northeast Corridor Line will leave Trenton for New York at 5:10 a.m. and 5:38 a.m. A new train on the Main/Bergen Line will leave Suffern, N.Y., for New York City at 5:24 a.m.
“Once again, NJ Transit has missed the mark,” said James Hig gins of Skillman, who commutes between Princeton Junction and New York. “These early additional trains are of little value to commut ers on the Northeast Corridor. The bulk of the riders need additional trains from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. A 5:10 a.m. train will get me into New York at 6:05 a.m. That may make my employer happy but will do little for me and my quality of life.”
But Stessel said NJ Transit has seen the peak period spreading onto the “shoulders” of the traditional morning rush hours, with a strong growth in demand before 6:30 a.m. and after 9 a.m. An early morning train added on the North Jersey Coast Line two years ago was sparsely used at first but has seen a steady increase in ridership, he said.
“Our experience with the early morning trains is: If you build them, they will come,” Stessel said.
Plans for the early-morning express trains on the Northeast Cor ridor Line were welcome news to Jackie Condie, who rides every day between Princeton Junction and New York Penn Station. She usually rides the 5:47 a.m. local train. Now she will switch to the 5:38 a.m. express.
“As one of those regular commuters who fall asleep the moment the train starts to roll out of the station, the express to Newark is fantastic news,” Condie said. “While I don’t have a problem finding a seat at that hour, it does mean I won’t be jarred awake at each subsequent station stop by arrival announcements or general oncoming passenger chatter.”
As riders from the “outer zone” between Princeton Junction and Trenton change onto those new Northeast Corridor express trains, NJ Transit expects there will be more seats available on existing local trains for riders who board at Jersey Avenue, New Brunswick, Edison, Metuchen and Metropark, Stessel said.
Ted Goldberg, who catches a Northeast Corridor train in New Brunswick at 5:37 a.m. every day, hopes the new service has the effect NJ Transit predicts.
“There is nothing worse than being uncomfortable early in the morning, especially after paying $19 for a train ticket,” he said.
No trains were cut in the schedule changes NJ Transit announced yesterday. Stessel said many times were changed slightly, and he urged riders to read the new schedules carefully this week. The schedules are already available on the agency’s Web site, njtransit.com, and they will be handed out on the trains before the end of the week.
Doug Bowen, president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, applauded the additional service NJ Transit will provide to its “core commuter market.” But he decried the downgrades that have occurred over time in off-peak and weekend service.