The meeting of the New Jersey Transit Board of Directors which was held this morning may reflect positive change coming to the agency. Today's meeting was the last for Executive Director Vernoique "Ronnie" Hakim, who left after 22 months at NJT to return to the MTA in New York. There has been no word on who might succeed her. In addition, longtime Board member Myron "Mike" Shevell, a trucking executive, retired from the Board.

There was also a historic event that occurred at the meeting. For the first time since April, 2003, there was a dissenting vote cast on a matter before the Board. Newly-appointed Transportation Commissioner Richard Hammer voted to disapprove a settlement in a personal injury case against NJT. This vote marked the first time in nearly thirteen years that any Board action was not taken unanimously. By law, the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of New Jersey Transit.

We will have further details in the next issue of the Railgram.

In a press conference held in Manhattan's West Side -- the eventual construction site of new trans-Hudson rail tunnels -- U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that the newly-passed, $300-billion, five-year Federal transportation act would help finance new rail tunnels under the Hudson. Booker said, "Now New Jersey and New York (have) the best possible environment to fund Gateway. It shows our funding picture is very strong." Schumer was even more optimistic, saying "We worked hard to get it in, and now it means the new tunnel, from the Federal side, has a green, green light."  But doubts remain as to where all of the money, said to total $20 billion, might come from, particularly regarding the contributions of the two states, which would be required to contribute a total of half of the budget. The new Transportation act would allow Amtrak to utilize excess revenues from its Northeast Corridor operations to be retained and invested in the Corridor, which would provide a source for the tunnel project. (Observers have noted that such funds can be applied today to Amtrak operations outside of the Northeast; dedicating them to local projects might threaten Amtrak's nationwide network.)

The story was reported in print media on Dec. 8 in the Star-Ledger by Larry Higgs, and in the New York Times by Emma G. Fitzsimmons.

A link to the Times article is here. We could not immediately find an online version of Larry Higgs article; however, an additional article, not yet in print as far as we can determine, by Larry Higgs is here.

Most published articles tend to equate the new tunnel project with Amtrak's "Gateway" project.  The Lackawanna Coalition strongly believes that new tunnels should be built, and that construction start immediately; however, the Coalition has strong reservations about the expansive Amtrak Gateway project, which includes not only the new tunnels but an expansion of Penn Station which may not be to NJ Transit riders' advantage, and may increase the cost of the projects beyond what is affordable.

An amendment to the federal transportation bill which would have cancelled $1.6 billion in "high density public transportation" funding to the Northeast has apparently been withdrawn in the House-Senate reconciliation process, according to reporting by Jonathan Salant for NJ Advance Media and reported (Dec. 1, afternoon) on nj.com; see the story here; it also appears in the Star-Ledger (Dec. 2); additional reporting by David M. Herszenhorn in the New York Times (Dec. 2) is here.  The $300 billion bill grants states a 5% increase in highway funding, but an 8% increase in local transit funding. It uses a variety of stopgap funding methods to preserve the overall budget balance, including increases in "customs fees" and some pretty strange things, such as denying US passports to those who owe more than $50,000 in income taxes; presumably, such people would be encouraged to pay up on their taxes (or maybe just buy a passport from some other country). One thing it does not do is increase the federal gasoline tax.

The pending federal transportation bill had contained an amendment that could cut $50 million from NJT funding; the amendment proposed to eliminate a $1.6 billion program to aid "high-density public transportation" in seven Northeast states. According to U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), if not rolled back the amendment could jeopardize the proposed Gateway tunnel project; the legislators’ statements were reported by Larry Higgs at nj.com and appear in the Star-Ledger (Dec. 1). How could $50 million affect a $20 billion project like Gateway? Menendez said it would put NJT in a budget hole, cause deferred maintenance and service degradation, and make it more difficult to find funding for the tunnel project.  The legislators said they were acting to strike the offending changes, which they said should be done by Friday, December 4, when the current extension of existing legislation expires. Rep. Sires is on the House-Senate conference committee that is considering the bill. Read Larry Higgs' complete story here.

Finally comfirming rumors that have been circulating for weeks, news reports on November17 confirm that NJ Transit Executive Director Veronica Hakim has accepted a new job, that of President of New York City Transit.   Hakim in her new position will be responsible for bus and subway operations at NYC Transit, a division of New York State's Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Hakim is no stranger to the MTA, having spent 23 years there.  Before becoming NJT's director, she had served for four years as executive director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.  Hakim will take up her new post on December 28.

Read here a story about the transfer in the Asbury Park Press.

In an analysis of what Hakim's departure means for NJ Transit, Larry Higgs reported on Nov. 18 for NJ Advance Media. The article includes quotes from Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, who said "It seems like a revolving door for NJT leadership."

The "nine challenges" facing NJT, according to Higgs' article, include a broken financing system, including raiding capital funds for operating purposes, and a possible fare increase on the heels of this year's hike; unhappy riders who cite frequent delays; expiring union contracts and the possibility of a strike early in 2016; and growing ridership with no where to accommodate them in an aging fleet of equipment.

Read the full article here.

Regular weekend shuttle train service returned to the Gladstone Branch on Saturday, Nov. 14, for the first time in nearly eight months.  Bus service was provided starting March 22 as NJ Transit cleared the tracks for its continuing maintenance program, which has interrupted Gladstone train service on and off for years. For several months during the summer, midday trains on weekdays were also replaced by buses. A main objective of the program is replacement of wooden poles that support the overhead wires which supply energy to the trains; the replacement structures are of steel. The project is still not finished: the latest NJT timetable notes that buses will return "in late winter or early spring."  The replacement bus service provided a slower ride for most riders, with inbound departures ten to 15 minutes earlier than with train service, and unchanged times for the trains east of Summit.  Outbound buses were schedule to run at approximately the same times as the trains they replaced, but in our experience the buses usually ran about ten minutes late, particuarly for outlying stations. 

President Obama has appointed a second Presidential Emergency  Board to continue mediation between NJ Transit's unions and the carrier. The process establishes a second 60-day cooling off period, during which strikes are prohibited by Federal law.  With this action, the earliest a strike could occur is approximately January 10.  Reporting by Larry Higgs in the Star-Ledger can be read here.

On November 12 Govs. Christie (R-NJ) and Cuomo (D-NY) and US Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced a comprehensive funding plan to enable the Gateway trans-Hudson tunnel and rail improvement project to move forward. 50% of the funding will be provided by Federal sources, including grants and other sources. It was clear, however, that a significant portion of the funding will come from loans, not grants, and the financing plan is structured so that payment of debt service will be deferred until the project is in operation; reports say that Amtrak does not expect the project to be complete before the year 2030, although some sources suggest that the tunnels themselves could be complete in just ten years.  According to an announcement released by Gov. Christie's office, the Federal 50% share would come from various Federal programs and loans that the federal government would repay; the sources include Amtrak capital funds and profits from Amtrak's Northeast Corridor operations.

The story was reported by Larry Higgs in the Star-Ledger; read the full story here. The story was also reported by Emma G. Fitzsimmons in the New York Times; read the full story here.

To implement the program, a Gateway Development Corporation will be created under the auspices of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The governing board of this corporation will have members from both states, the US Department of Transportation, and Amtrak. Any "new assets" created by the corporation (presumably, including the new tunnels) will be owned by the corporation itself, and use of them by the railroads will involve "appropriate terms." The structure of the financial project is said to allow access to low-interest funding sources that would not be easily available to all the individual participants. Reportedly, the two states could raise their share of the project by issuing bonds, or by tapping into a Federal low-cost loan fund with interests rates of less than two percent.

The full scope of the project was not immediately clear, although the Trenton press release referred to the Amtrak "Gateway" project, which has been previously described to include not only the tunnels themselves, but a major expansion of Pennsylvania Station in New York (under the city block immediately to the south); replacement of the Portal drawbridge over the Hackensack River; and construction of two additional tracks between the new tunnels and Newark on the Northeast Corridor. Most of the existing infrastructure dates from about 105 years ago, although there have been many incremental improvements over that time span. Larry Higgs' article mentioned construction of two additional tracks as far as Newark as part of the project.

While the states together would be responsible for half the total funding, it was not clear how the two states would split that half, as Capital New York observed in an article posted online on Nov. 12. The article reported that Sen. Schumer commented, in an interview that day, "They haven’t worked out between themselves if they each match each other, or New Jersey does more than New York, or vice versa."

The Wall Street Journal commented that "It remains unclear how the local, state and federal governments will fund the tunnel project in an era of tight budgets."  The possibility that Amtrak Northeast Corridor profits might be used reflects a proposal currently  being considered in Congress to use such profits within the Northeast Corridor; identification of the size of any such funds depends on Amtrak's complex accounting system, since both Northeast Corridor and long-distance trains operating outside the Northeast share facilities. But it is widely understood that Amtrak may be using Northeast Corridor "profits" to subsidize operations outside the Northeast.  Thus, any diversion of funds to projects such as Gateway might pose a threat to Amtrak operations in other areas.

There was also some political fallout from the announcement; an article in the Star-Ledger (Nov. 13) by Brent Johnson and headlined "Will U.S. Funding for Tunnel Hurt Christie?" speculated that Gov. Christie's Presidential aspirations might suffer if Republican primary voters see the tunnel project as an expansion of Federal funding.

The Lackawanna Coalition strongly supports construction of new tunnel capacity as soon as possible, and believes that if funding continues to delay the project, a single track tunnel could be built quickly with funds already available, and could potentially avoid a disaster should one of the two existing tunnels need to be taken out of service.

We commend New Jersey Transit for allowing its riders, who are also our constituents, to leave New York City and Dover later on Monday through Friday nights than they could for the past several weeks. We complained to our elected officials and to the media about the service reductions, and about the lack of notice to us and to the riding public about the elimination of the last trains on several routes.

We credit our advocacy on behalf of our riders as a significant cause of those concessions by NJT. We will continue to advocate for the restoration of service from New York later at night. Riders on Long Island and the areas served by Metro-North can leave New York City later than riders on our lines of concern, which inconveniences our riders and makes New Jersey less competitive with suburban areas or New York State for people who want access to New York City and everything the City has to offer.

If we had known that NJT had planned to eliminate the last trains on our routes of concern, we could have fought to keep those trains before the initial damage was done. We continue to call for public notice of any service eliminations, whether or not NJT management considers those service cuts to be significant. We and the public we represent have a right to know if NJT plans to curtail their mobility.

Our riders now have half of the late-evening time in New York City that they lost in September. They also have an 11:30 inbound departure from Dover, but using that train to access local stops in Essex County now requires a half-hour wait in Summit for the next trains. These improvements constitute steps and the right direction, and we appreciate any improvement that NJT makes. These improvements constitute a good start toward restoring mobility for our riders, and the is much more to be done.

We will continue our campaign until our riders have the level of service they deserve, and until there is a policy in place that will prevent NJT from cutting service without prior notice to us and to the public that would be adversely affected by such service reductions.

US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx said on October 1 that officials of both the federal government and New Jersey were taking significant initial steps to move the long-delayed Hudson River rail tunnel project forward, according to reporting by Emma G. Fitzsimmons in the New York Times (Oct. 2). According to Secretary Foxx, Amtrak will oversee engineering work on the project, while NJ Transit will lead environmental studies. The Port Authority might be designated to oversee the project, and Foxx said his department will expedite the project by shortening permit intervals and enter into discussions about federal grants and other financing options. Mr. Foxx said he wanted to move quickly because of the deteriorating condition of the existing century-old tunnels. NJT spokeswoman Nancy Snyder confirmed NJT's role in the environmental impact phase, but said the role still must be confirmed by NJT's board of directors; the review could take two to three years. NJT has agreed to share its studies from the earlier Access to the Region's Core (ARC) tunnel project with Amtrak.  Secretary Foxx said the  environmental and engineering study work is essential to determine the true scope and cost of the project, a necessary preliminary to creating a funding plan. It is not totally clear from the reporting just what the scope of the project is currently assumed to be, but the Times article appears to assume that it will be Amtrak's Gateway proposal, which, as the Times reports, includes not only a two-tube rail tunnel under the Hudston but also an expanded Penn Station, a replacement for the Portal bridge over the Hackensack River west of the Hudson, and "other upgrades."  Secretary Foxx said, however, that the project could be executed in phases, with the new tunnel being the first priority.

Read the complete Times story here.

As federal and state officials continued to feud over who should pay for new rail tunnels under the Hudson, an Amtrak official said that the ARC tunnel canceled by New Jersey Governor Christie in 2010 would not have solved emerging problems with the century-old tunnels under the river. Stephen Gardner, Amtrak VP of Northeast Corridor infrastructure investment, said that ARC would have provided limited benefits because it would not have gone to Penn Station, instead to a separate station under 34 Street in Manhattan a few blocks north of the existing station. "If ARC were built, we would still be in this situation," Gardner said, quoted by Larry Higgs in the Star-Ledger (Aug. 11). Advocacy groups, including the Lackawanna Coalition, have maintained that ARC was a waste of money because it did not integrate with Penn Station and the existing tunnels, and Gardner's statement agrees with their position.

Meanwhile, state and federal politicians continued to debate who should pay for new tunnels, with the governors of both New York and New Jersey saying that it should be paid for with federal, not state funds. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said "It's not my tunnel. Why don't you pay for it? It is an Amtrak tunnel that is used by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit." Amtrak has committed $300 million, a small fraction of the project's estimated $14 billion cost.

Higgs' online story also quoted Al Papp Jr., a director of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers and past Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition, as saying that the federal government has to pay a larger share (of the tunnel cost) since the tunnel literally allows connection to every state (via) Amtrak service. Papp noted that the tunnels are similar to the Interstate highway system: originally built to move people across state lines, but today primarily used by commuters.

Gardner warned that recent delays in service through the tunnels might become the norm, even if the new tunnels are built; they might not be done for ten years.  Amtrak's plan once the new tunnels are complete, roughly in 2025, is not to increase service but instead take the existing tunnels out of service for rehabilitation, which might take until 2030. In Senate testimony, Gardner exhibited a charred section of power cable removed from the Hudson tunnels; it was installed in the 1930s, and its failure during the week of July 20 was one of the causes of extensive delays.

Reporting on this story can be found here, in the New York Times (by Kate Zernike) and here (nj.com by Larry Higgs, echoing his print coverage in the Star-Ledger).

The Lackawanna Coalition believes that construction of at least one new tunnel under the Hudston needs to start immediately.  The Coalition has advocated that a single track tunnel could be built first at lower cost, and allow the existing tunnels to be taken our of service for maintenance one at a time. But at least one, and preferably two, tunnels should be started at once.