New Jersey residents, lawmakers and straphangers are throwing the proverbial spaghetti at the wall to see what will stick to improve their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad commutes this summer on NJ Transit trains.
Lawmakers from both parties have made myriad demands, including calls for an audit, special hearings and a pause on NJ Transit’s recent 15% fare hike . One local mayor is writing late notes for the employers of NJ Transit commuters who have become routinely late for work. A group of riders plan to present action items to NJ Transit for basic improvements at Wednesday night’s board meeting.
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“Nothing has provided any relief for this summer,” said Sheena Collum, the South Orange mayor writing the late notes and who organized a commuter roundtable attended by more than 200 people last month.
“It’s another summer of hell and there has been no contingency planning or no announcement of things to help right now,” Collum said. “We need tactical solutions on the ground now.”
'Heat-related rail equipment issues'
NJ Transit issued a rail service announcement last week alerting customers to canceled trips, added local stops to some routes and other service changes because of “heat-related rail equipment issues” affecting the air conditioning and electronic components on trains.
These "necessary repairs were made to affected components in order to put them back into passenger service," said NJ Transit spokesman Jim Smith.
This was preceded by weeks of unpredictable service caused by trains breaking down, track outages, wires falling on tracks , signal issues, bridge malfunctions and power outages — an avalanche of consequences from failing and aging equipment owned by NJ Transit and Amtrak, which share tracks along the busiest stretch of railroad in North America.
Commuters dealing with this infrastructure crisis in real time are trying to decipher mixed messages to determine whether or not trains are canceled, diverted to other stations or adding stops.
Then they’re storming onto packed trains or buses and racing to other stations with crowds of other frustrated riders seeking alternatives to get across the Hudson River. There have been reports of pushing, medical emergencies, panic attacks and overall concerns about deteriorating mental health from trying to navigate this transit maze.
Riders outline requests for better NJ Transit service
NJ Transit commuters are at a breaking point — and after tiring of waiting for improvements, they have their own demands.
“We have to have some sort of workable, stopgap solution because commuters showing up to work an hour and a half late, two hours to get home, stuck in hot, overcrowded conditions, unsafe trains because of standing room only … is not sustainable,” said Erin Scherzer, a commuter from Maplewood.
“There has to be some sort of accountability for what’s happening now and that needs to be communicated out with specific deliverables,” Scherzer said.
Scherzer is one of several commuters who has used social media to organize a set of talking points with “Commuters’ 3 Asks” of NJ Transit: better communication, more contingency planning, and improvements to health and safety issues arising from overcrowding.
Terry Nolan, who rides the Morris & Essex line, told NJ Transit board members in June that this has been her worst commuting experience in 11 years. She tallied 21 train cancellations on her line in one week, 17 of which occurred because there weren't enough train cars available.
“I assume you don’t wake up and trains have been stolen so you know in advance which cars are going to run which lines, but what I don’t understand is why there’s a 10-minute notice before a train is canceled,” she said.
Nolan told board members at that June meeting that there had been 37 late trains just that week, with service in and out of New York Penn Station 20 to 60 minutes delayed, and two service suspensions.
"That has created some really dangerous conditions at Hoboken," Nolan said. "It’s really overrun, it cannot handle the amount of trains being diverted there, but that is going to continue to happen, you’ve got to come up with more trains going to Hoboken to handle the number of people.”
No update from Amtrak on wire issue
After four months, there is still no update from Amtrak about why its overhead wires get tangled in NJ Transit’s pantographs — the equipment on top of the train cars that feed it power.
Jason Abrams, an Amtrak spokesman, said a joint review is being finalized. It will communicate what is known about the causes of delays and outages, and “will result in a prioritized set of investments to address sources of chronic delays.”
Amtrak also applied for four grants this month to upgrade and replace catenary between New Brunswick and Newark, signals between New Brunswick and Elizabeth, a substation replacement project and to replace the Sawtooth Bridge. These grants could be approved in a few months, but these projects will take years to be completed.
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone has kept in touch with Amtrak CEO Steve Gardner since June about what is causing the wire problems and sought updates.
“The work of the delegation to try to say, ‘This has got to be prioritized’ is happening, but will that mean there won’t be any more delays? No. Will that mean there are less delays? Hopefully,” Pallone said. Amtrak "may not have even applied for the long-term (grants) if we hadn’t put a lot of pressure on them, but they are trying to both do more repairs and make these long-term commitments.”
Commuters feel ‘gaslit’
In the last seven months, commuters have increasingly spoken up about what they say have been unpredictable and unacceptable service on NJ Transit, but they say it’s falling on deaf ears.
In January, Gov. Phil Murphy called the system “world-class” and pushed back against riders calling in to “Ask the Governor” shows complaining about broken-down equipment. That crescendoed in the lead-up to April, when the board unanimously approved 15% fare hikes and 3% annual increases in future years despite overwhelming protest , particularly without guarantees for better and expanded service .
NJ Transit’s board members have also grown quieter since its three most outspoken members left, one of whom was replaced and another of whom resigned . Since their departures, there is little discussion or questions raised by board members at public board meetings or in committee meetings.
At last month’s customer service committee meeting, 21 people called in to complain about their horrible commutes this summer and asked what would be done about it.
NJ Transit President and CEO Kevin Corbett said cancellations because of mechanical failures weren’t a significant percentage of overall trips, but “we understand if it’s your train or your bus, that one trip is 100% for you.”
Scherzer, the Maplewood commuter, said she felt “gaslit” by that response.
“I was honestly taken aback by the comments from Kevin Corbett regarding how NJ Transit seems to be doing all right,” she said. “We need more of the public involved and we need real-time feedback because I have serious concerns that the data your system is pulling is actually accurate."
Shanti Narra was the only board member to respond, asking NJ Transit’s staff to weigh in and noted that 21 speakers at that meeting was probably a record.
"I think that’s representative of how much frustration there is,” Narra said. “We need to focus on this some more and perhaps get some more detailed information to the public about what it means when we’re talking about mechanical issues.”
In the first five months of 2024, there were 550 NJ Transit trains canceled for mechanical failures, the highest number in that period in the last eight years of data available.
NJ Transit points to aging equipment that was not adequately replaced by prior administrations. The Murphy administration ordered 113 new multilevel railcars in 2018 that should arrive later this year, ordered 25 more in 2022 and at Wednesday's meeting will seek approval for another 36, with contract options to add another 100 in the coming years.
"The most meaningful way to improve the mechanical reliability of the fleet is to lower the average age of the fleet," said Smith, the NJ Transit spokesman, who added the goal is "that every train serving Penn Station New York will be a multi-level set, increasing reliability, capacity and customer comfort."
But even NJ Transit's newest equipment — multi-level railcars put into service between 2012-18 — has fluctuated in reliability, which raises questions about whether the agency is having trouble fixing its rolling stock.
Despite this, information about which equipment is breaking down more frequently disappeared from board documents last summer . The reason for this, according to Smith, is because the quarterly data didn't "meaningfully vary enough from quarter to quarter."
Yet the multi-level railcars alone saw significant fluctuations, traveling 967,471 miles in the third quarter of 2021 before breaking down, then decreased to a low of 378,052 miles in the second quarter of 2022 but improved to 577,214 miles in the third quarter last year.
Big decisions, less transparency
Information provided in NJ Transit’s public board documents has diminished in recent years during the Murphy administration.
In April, the board voted unanimously and without comment to approve an $85 million contract to Academy Express, LLC, the company paying off a historic settlement for allegedly defrauding NJ Transit out of more than $15 million over six years . There was no discussion about why this company was suddenly qualified to bid after the board wouldn’t award the company a contract a year earlier.
The agency also didn’t disclose that no other company bid on the contract, what NJ Transit’s bus operations had estimate it would cost for the agency to take over the bus routes, or that Academy’s winning bid was 70% more than what it cost to run the same service in 2017, even though Academy would be operating the routes for two fewer years.
Before NJ Transit’s board approved the agency to negotiate a lease for a new headquarters in February 2023, the public wasn’t made aware that the agency was planning to move at all. Board documents provided to the public before the vote didn’t include simple details such as where NJ Transit was looking to move, the company it was negotiating with, how many square feet it sought and the estimated cost to move.
The board’s vice chairman resigned before the vote , citing this as the final straw after months of concerns about declining transparency over major decisions at the agency.
It would only come out months later through public information requests and reporting by NorthJersey.com that the new headquarters location was the most expensive option , that there were cheaper and more space-efficient alternatives, and that high-level staff at NJ Transit exchanged information about various specs with the winning landlord months before seeking bids.
These are just two examples of expensive contracts with significant implications for NJ Transit’s strained operating budget that went publicly unquestioned by board members and voted on with little available information.
Similarly, the board approved the fare hikes despite the Murphy administration’s failure to disclose it had commissioned a study to find $600 million in budget cuts at NJ Transit months earlier. Neither the agency nor Murphy’s office have answered questions about whether the public will receive an update or report on that study.
Smith, of NJ Transit, said the agency "has made more data and information publicly available than any time in the agency’s history," pointing to performance data now available on their website , opening committee meetings to the public and providing their materials and recordings online, which are also offered online for full board meetings.
Demand for public hearings and an audit
Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, said public hearings are one of the tools legislators should use to “grill the officials in charge” at NJ Transit.
“There’s no question transparency is a problem and the governor for a time could have deluded himself into believing that the problem is fixed. That’s impossible with what’s going on this summer,” O’Scanlon said.
“We only have so many levers that we can pull," he said. "We need to pull them all and at least then we can get direct answers for our beleaguered commuters.”
Sen. Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, wants to conduct an independent audit.
“Bring an agency in, let them conduct a complete audit, identify the problems and then use the increase in the fares and the money that is going to be allocated from the corporate transit fee," Bucco said. "Then hold the leadership team at NJ Transit responsible if those issues aren’t resolved.”
U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat who represents parts of Essex County, called for a pause on fare hikes.
“I understand the difficult budget circumstances for NJ Transit, but this is a textbook example of inconsistent planning and short-term thinking that has been far too typical in Trenton and Washington,” Sherrill said in a statement.
Natalie Hamilton, a Murphy spokeswoman, did not answer questions about concerns raised over transparency at NJ Transit, calls for hearings, a fare hike break or audits.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Transit riders' irritation grows with summer of delays, canceled trains
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