(The following article by Greg Clary was posted on the White Plains Journal News website on April 26.)
NANUET, N.Y. — NJ Transit doesn’t plan to come up with any reverse commuting or off-peak service on the Pascack Valley Line until after the end of 2007, when the tracks necessary to run both directions are expected to be finished.
This latest delay found commuters on the line that serves Pearl River, Nanuet and Spring Valley shaking their heads in disgust.
“Considering how long things have taken on this line, it’s hardly surprising,” said Alan Dalewitz, a New City commuter who travels from Nanuet to New York City on the rail line. “I know a guy who’s been taking this line since the ’70s and he said he’s still waiting for improvements the railroad promised.”
Rail officials said they plan to go forward with the construction of passing sidings — used to take trains off the main line and allow other trains to go past — as soon as the fall.
But the special track configuration at three sites — Nanuet and the New Jersey communities of Oradell and Hackensack — will not be finished until 2007.
Final design of the improvements was completed in July, but the plans are being reconsidered in light of a proposal to add a rail spur to the Meadowlands Sports Complex.
The cost of the sidings project could run as high as $36 million, NJ Transit spokesman Kenneth Hitchner said.
“The three sidings should be operational by the end of 2007,” Hitchner said. “It’s still too premature as to when we would add service.”
Veteran commuter Orrin Getz said the railroad has been promising to finish the sidings and add off-peak and weekend service for 10 years.
“They said the passing sidings would be finished when Secaucus was, but that came and went,” Getz said of the September opening of the $450 million transit junction. “Then they said they would start once Secaucus was finished. We don’t even know if they can deliver the service.”
Getz said the idea of reopening a defunct rail line between Suffern and Spring Valley, to create a circular route for the trains to use, has resurfaced. Hitchner said he had no information on that.
Dalewitz said without midday service, commuters don’t have a lot of options if they want to get home other than at rush hour.
“If you could get home early, or they had trains running all day long, it would make life better,” he said. “Now, if I have to get home and know about it in advance, I usually make arrangements other than the train.”
Stephen Lofthouse, a commuter advocate from Congers, said not only is the lack of midday service a problem for commuters trying to get home in an emergency, there’s a loss of business for the railroad from people who might take the train during the day to enjoy New York City.
“Who wants to leave at eight in the morning for a show that starts at two in the afternoon?” Lofthouse said. “And there’s no weekend service, either.”
NJ Transit officials, who run the rail operations between Rockland and New Jersey under a special operating agreement with Metro-North Railroad, have faced local opposition to the new tracks.
Oradell officials have said they don’t want to see increased freight service on the Pascack Valley, a situation they have told rail officials could happen with more capacity.
Hitchner said the railroad had no intention of increasing freight use along that line.
“There has been concern that improvements would mean more freight service. It won’t,” Hitchner said. “There are very few freight trains on the Pascack Valley Line and we do not believe that will change. The line ends at Spring Valley. It’s a dead end.”