(The following story by Khurram Saeed appeared on The Journal News website on July 27.)
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Rockland residents will have a new way to catch a Broadway play or come home early from their jobs in Manhattan when added train service arrives in the fall.
NJ Transit and Metro-North Railroad will offer long-anticipated, much-delayed off-peak and weekend service on the Pascack Valley Line starting Oct. 28.
It will be the first time the service will be offered on the line, which has stops in Spring Valley, Nanuet and Pearl River. The additional service is due to the completion of passing tracks at four locations along the line.
On weekdays, there will be six off-peak trains to Hoboken, N.J., and seven off-peak trains to Rockland. On weekends, there will be 11 New Jersey-bound trains and 12 Rockland-bound trains.
The times for the new train service have not been released.
“It’s very good news for the county,” said Orrin Getz of New City, who is Rockland’s coordinator for the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers and a regular NJ Transit commuter. “We have, for the first time, all-day train service for people who live in the central part of the county.”
Trains on the Pascack Valley Line currently run during the early morning rush hour and in the late afternoon and early evening.
Suffern and Sloatsburg are the only places in the county where residents can catch a train to the city on the weekend or during the day. Some residents, such as Joseph Kanusher of New Hempstead, don’t want to drive to western Ramapo to take the train.
Kanusher and his wife usually drive to Manhattan four times a month to catch a play, take in an exhibit at a museum or eat out.
With the possibility that anyone entering Manhattan below 96th Street might have to pay an $8 congestion toll, Kanusher said, taking mass transit from Rockland was becoming more appealing.
“If I’m going to go during the day and be charged $8 just to come into Midtown, it doesn’t pay for me,” Kanusher said. “Too expensive. I’ll take the train.”
NJ Transit and Metro-North collectively spent $39 million to build four passing tracks in Nanuet and New Jersey – in Hackensack, Hasbrouck Heights and East Rutherford. The current single-track line allows only one train in one direction. The sidings allow two trains on the track to pass each other.
“Any time that people have another way of getting around, it’s got to be a good thing,” Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said yesterday. “With traffic and density growing constantly, people need more alternatives.”
Metro-North contracts with NJ Transit to provide commuter rail service in New York.
About 850 people use the Pascack Valley Line in Rockland and Orange counties. Ridership is expected to rise with the addition of the extra service; specific projections, however, were unavailable.
A draft schedule that NJ Transit created last year revealed the new N.J.-bound trains would run between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. weekdays. Trains would begin to arrive in Rockland after 9:30 a.m., with the last one arriving around 1 a.m.
“If people have to come home early or stay late, there’ll be a lot more flexibility in the train schedule,” Getz said. “So it will be a big boon for the regular commuters.”
There would be 11 weekend trains from Rockland to New Jersey between 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Twelve Rockland-bound weekend trains would arrive between 9:30 a.m. to close to 1:40 a.m.
Anders said none of the off-peak and weekend trains would have express runs from Rockland to the end of the line, in New Jersey, but most would be zoned so they don’t make all of the local stops.
“It’s a great development,” Orangetown Supervisor Thom Kleiner said. “Anything that increases for the potential for mass transit in the community is welcome.”
Kleiner said he expected the service to become even more popular if NJ Transit moves forward to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River into Midtown, which would not only increase capacity but also provide Rockland residents with a one-seat ride into the city. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is a partner in the $7.4 billion project.
The additional Pascack Valley Line service has been anticipated since 2000, Getz said. It was pushed back to 2003 to coincide with the opening of the Secuacus Junction transfer station and was further delayed when nine communities in northern New Jersey sued to prevent the sidings from being built in Oradell and Montvale. They were successful, and, as a result, a single track covers 14 miles from Pearl River to North Hackensack, serving 10 stations. It was not clear yesterday if those New Jersey stations would be served by the off-peak and weekend trains.