US Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie held a press conference on Wednesday, April 19, at Newark's Penn Station to demand government action on new tunnels under the Hudson River. The event was reported by Claude Brodesser-Akner for NJ Advance Media and printed in the Star-Ledger (April 20). The politicians challenged President Trump to send his Secretary of Transportation to inspect the 100-year-old existing tunnels, which were damaged by flooding from Hurricane Sandy more than four years ago, and have been described as "decrepit." Amtrak, which owns the tunnels, has warned that they will have to be shut down, one track at a time; if new tunnels are not built before this becomes necessary, restricting travel to one tunnel at a time would cripple peak hour commuter rail service, which requires both of the existing tunnels to function. The tunnels carry about 85,000 riders a day; some studies have warned that loss of one tunnel would reduce capacity by about 75%.  "We have reached a point of unacceptability for New Jersey, (for) America," said Booker. "We must have a firm commitment to replace these tunnels. . . . We are teetering every day on the brink of a traffic Armageddon."  For his part, Gov. Christie said that "I've already spoken to the President about this. The President is well aware of my point of view on this project, and I will absolutely continue to speak my mind on this, both publicly and privately."  Christie said he was confident that Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao would visit the tunnels. Despite the apparent dedication of both politicians to the project, reporters were quick to point out that Gov. Christie cancelled a previous tunnel proposal, the ARC project, years ago, and that if he had not, the ARC tunnels might have been available as early as next year.

The Lackawanna Coalition believes that Gov. Christie was right to cancel the ARC project, which we believe had fatal flaws; but the lack of progress since is unforgivable. The Coalition believes that the main focus should be on at least one new tunnel, and that construction should begin immediately, in hopes to avoid a transportation disaster. The much bigger project being currently proposed, called "Gateway," goes far beyond new tunnels to include expansion of New York Penn Station and other features; while these might be desirable in the long term, the larger project is probably unaffordable in the current political climate, and focusing on it tends to obscure the need for new tunnels, now.

Since an NJ Transit inbound train crashed through the bumper block on Track 5 at the Hoboken Terminal on September 29, several tracks have been out of service; but more importantly for commuters, damage from the crash, which injured several and killed a bystander in the station, has blocked a vital passageway through which most riders reach the PATH rapid transit station and an adjacent bus terminal. The blockage becomes especially significant when disruptions occur miles away at New York's Penn Station; in such an event, the Midtown Direct trains running to New York are diverted to Hoboken, and crowds swell as riders use PATH to travel between Hoboken and New York. Without a direct passageway between the rail terminal and the PATH station, riders have been forced to detour through the main Hoboken concourse and through doors not built for the flood of humanity.

The original passageway will reopen in June, according to reporting by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media. One track, presumably Track 5, will remain out of service. Full repairs will take another two years, partly owing to the historic nature of the terminal and the need for full cosmetic restoration. The crash severely damaged structural components of the concourse and adjacent ticket office, including electrical and mechanical facilities.

The April 14 stranding of more than a thousand NJ Transit passengers under the Hudson River was not due to infrastructure problems, according to Amtrak, which owns the track involved.  Reporting by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media (and published in the Star-Ledger on April 18) quotes Amtrak spokesperson Mike Tolbert as saying "Amtrak has determined that the incident involving NJ Transit Train 3850 last Friday was not caused by Amtrak infrastructure, and that the preliminary cause appears to be a NJ Transit mechanical problem involving the train's pantograph (power collector)."  Previously, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had blamed Amtrak for not maintaining its infrastructure, causing previous problems including a derailment of an NJT train; Gov. Christie threatened to withhold NJ Transit payments to Amtrak for the use of Amtrak's track and facilities.  After Amtrak blamed NJT for the latest incident, Gov. Christie's spokesperson accused Amtrak of blaming NJT prematurely. State legislators called for an end to the two agencies blaming each other, saying both were underfunded.  And State Sen. Robert Gordon (D-Bergen) went one step further, blaming Gov. Christie for the underfunding of NJT: "What we're seeing is the greatest legacy of Gov. Christie, the decline of NJ Transit."

A train crashes through the bumper in Hoboken, killing a bystander.  A packed NJT commuter train sideswipes a derailed Amtrak streamliner, paralyzing New York Penn. An NJT train gets stuck under the Hudson River, stranding a thousand people for three hours without fresh air. Afterwards, a distraught passenger is Tasered by cops and hundreds of people panic, running for their lives and abandoning "a sea of luggage."  All of this has happened in recent months, and in each case there was a serious disruption of transit service, affecting thousands of riders for hours. And in almost every case, nobody is happy with the response of the transit agencies responsible for the safe operation of a complex transportation system.

What should the response of those in authority be when things go wrong? We don't have any insight into how top officials act when faced with a crisis; we can only rely on published reports of what the public experiences and has to say about it.  But it seems that there is a lack of direct management by top officials; a lack of information flow to confused and stranded customers; and an inability to anticipate consequences, such as the near-riot at New York Penn on Good Friday, April 14.

When people are stuck in a train for a long period, they need and deserve direct support from top management.  They need to know what caused their dilemma, and what is being done about it. Almost always, this is lacking.  It appears that the crew of a stranded train is often not informed of the "big picture," and so passengers remain in the dark -- figuratively at least, and sometimes literally if power has failed. On April 14, the riders stuck under the Hudson -- one rider said it was "just inside the tunnel entrance" -- were alternately told that they would be evacuated, then that the train would be towed out.  There was only emergency lighting, and no fresh air; one passenger took the initiative to break out an escape window, and another fainted.  This didn't happen in an instant: the train was stuck for almost three hours.

Is it too much to require that when a train becomes disabled a senior railroad official be dispatched to the scene, to join the hapless passengers and keep them informed as to what is being done? This may result in a more rapid resolution of the crisis, but even if it does not, it would do a lot to calm down the riders and reassure them.  It also might give management some practical experience in the operation of their enterprise.  If a train is stuck for twenty minutes, it would not be practical for management to reach the scene.  But once an incident exceeds this time, it's overdue for someone to hit the road and take charge at the site.

Another type of crisis occurs at terminals when operations are disrupted. This was the aftermath on April 14 at New York Penn when thousands crowded the terminal areas, hoping to catch trains delayed by the one that was stuck in the tunnel. Any sort of crowd poses a dangerous situation, particularly in an underground location with limited exits. Whenever crowding gets intense, it's the responsibility of management to anticipate panic and have on-site personnel on duty before a tragedy occurs. In places like New York Penn, this is complicated by a balkanized management structure.  Whose crowd is it? NJ Transit!  Whose station is it? Amtrak! Who's responsible? Both of them! (Or maybe no one.) The problem of crowding is getting more and more frequent even when there is no service disruption; and now service disruptions are becoming regular events, too. And don't even ask about terrorism, or even the imagined terrorist threat.  All of this can cause panic, and panic can cause massive injury and death.

The metropolitan area gets more crowded every year; passenger loads increase; the infrastructure, instead of being fortified, instead is crumbling. We need better emergency response now, before it's too late.

It started with an all-too-familiar incident: an NJ Transit train had become stuck; one passenger reported the train had just entered the trans-Hudson tunnel when there was a bump, a flash, and the train suddenly stopped. The train, reportedly #3850 from Trenton due into New York at 3:15 p.m. on Friday, April 14, remained motionless in the Hudson River tunnel and did not reach Penn Station until about 6 p.m. Aboard the train, with no power to provide fresh air, riders became increasingy concerned; reportedly one passenger fainted, and another broke out an emergency window. Riders complained that there was a lack of information: first they were told the train would be towed, then that they would be evacuated. Finally, the train sat as Amtrak had to inspect it before it could move.  But as it turned out, the stuck riders were the lucky ones.

At Penn Station, delays multiplied as trains were rerouted around the stuck train; delays increased to an hour or so through the evening rush hour.  The station became crowded as thousands of riders waited for their delayed trains.  Riders seeking the Midtown Direct trains to the Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton lines of NJ Transit were directed to Hoboken; they headed for PATH trains and ferries in the hope of getting home somehow.  They too were lucky.

In the crowded station, an individual became unruly and Amtrak police used a Taser to subdue him; he protested, "I'm not resisting. This is only my mouth. I have freedom of speech." (Some reports say that the person subdued by the police was a passenger on the train that had been stuck.) Perhaps due to the noise of the Taser, and with everyone on the alert due to well-publicized terrorist attacks worldwide, the word spread: there was a shooter; shots had been fired. Multiple calls to 911 brought a heavy response from New York City police and National Guard personnel. No shots had been fired; there was no terrorist. But the crowd panicked, running for station exits, stumbling, falling, leaving possessions behind. Some recorded the panic on their cell phones, providing ample fodder for evening newscasts. These showed people running and stumbling through the station corridors, notably along the upper-level corrdidor that leads to the exit at 7th Avenue and 32nd Street. And on the NJ Transit 7th Avenue concourse, ropes and posts that had guided riders to the ticket windows lay on the ground, testimony to the flood of humanity that had apparently trampled them. One report said 16 people were injured in the stampede. Mayor de Blasio tweeted that "no shots were fired" and that Fire Department paramedics were treating the injured.

By 10 p.m. NJ Transit was still announcing delays of up to two hours as the system struggled to get back to normal. Out on the Gladstone branch, where the last train should arrive around 1:30 a.m., a westbound train was heard passing over an hour later, suggesting that delays continue until the close of business at NJ Transit.

The widely ballyhooed Gateway project to rebuild and expand New York's Penn Station is just a "Gateway to megadebt," according to an opinion piece by Paul Mulshine in the Star-Ledger (April 13). Mulshine took a walking tour of midtown Manhattan with retired Long Island Rail Road executive (and Lackawanna Coalition member) Joe Clift, and said he learned that the problem with Gateway, as well as its predecessor Access to the Region's Core (ARC) is pork -- political pork barrel, not the kind served at Brother Jimmy's BBQ, a Manhattan restaurant that is located on a Manhattan city block that would have to be razed -- all 64 real estate parcels -- if the full Gateway expansion were to happen. We need tunnels, but the tunnels are only a small part of the total expenditure for Gateway, $24 billion and likely to increase, say Mulshine and Clift, once the project attempts to acquire those parcels. What we need to do is to go back to the original 1995 tunnel plan before ARC got politicized and trimmed down to a deep-cavern station 180 feet deep near Macy's.  And the original plan would have gone beyond Penn Station with tunnels to Grand Central Terminal, an underutilized facility on the East Side of Manhattan -- where many commuters want to go. Where will the money come from for Gateway? Recent developments in Washington show that the Feds are backing away from their commitment to all new transit projects, including Gateway; and as for New Jersey's half of the project, "we're broke," Mulshine writes.  A third, single-track tunnel would only cost "a couple billion bucks," said Clift, and would provide an alternative for train traffic while the crumbling, hundred-year-old tunnels can be rehabbed. Later could come a fourth tunnel and maybe that connection to Grand Central. "Or," Mulshine writes, "we could just keep loading up the Gateway project with pork and hope The Donald sends a big check . . . that could happen . . . but pigs will fly before it does."

If you think New York's transit situation is bad, it will only get worse, if infrastructure continues to be neglected.  That's the theme of an opinion piece in the New York Times (April 11) by the U.S. senators from New York and New Jersey. In the column, Sens. Booker, Gillibrand, Menendez, and Schumer warned that if we don't act "soon" to repair the aging and flood-damaged tunnels under the Hudson, the recent chaos due to a train derailment (see article below) will become "a permanent reality." They then go on to describe Amtrak's Gateway project, which would include two new tunnels along with many other improvements.  The senators warn that key Federal funding sources needed to implement Gateway would be slashed in the budget that President Trump has proposed. Gateway is important, the senators added, but is only "an illustration of the country’s immense need for infrastructure investments."  They contrasted the President's stated commitment to massive infrastructure investment, but lack of specifics and budget cuts instead, with what they said were Democrats' actual plans to invest in the country's infrastructure. If the budget proposals go forward, the senators warned of a "hair-raising transit apocalypse" to come.

The Lackawanna Coalition is dubious that funding can be secured for the very expensive Gateway project; the essential component is the tunnels, which can be built for a fraction of the total cost of Gateway; only one single-track tunnel would avoid the "apocalypse"  the senators envision. Two tunnels, of course, would be better, if the money can be found.

Service returned to near-normal on Friday, April 7 after four days of disrupted service on all three rail carriers using New York's Penn Station. The chaos started around 9 a.m. on Monday, April 3, when an NJ Transit inbound train derailed while entering the station. Later in the week, Amtrak determined that the cause was "misaligned rails" at a critical switching point, and blamed the defect on deteriorated crosstie timbers beneath the rails.  Amtrak, which owns and maintains the station complex, said it had been aware of the deterioration, but hadn't appreciated how serious the problem had become; Amtrak vowed to re-inspect all of its Penn Station trackage. Amtrak's analysis was reported (April 7) by Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Nick Corasaniti in the New York Times; they said the deteriorated timbers allowd the rails to spread and the train's wheels to drop between the rails.  Amtrak had hoped to complete repairs in time for the morning rush hour on Friday, but work continued for several hours, causing delays and cancelation of 14 trains on the Long Island Rail Road Friday morning.  By the evening rush on Friday, apparently all tracks were opened and service was close to normal. As a hedge against possible continuing problems, NJ Transit announced that cross-honoring of tickets with PATH and ferries would continue through 3 a.m. on Saturday, April 8.

The incident was an eerie reprise of the Amtrak derailment on March 24 (see story below). In the April 3 incident, inbound NJ Transit peak-hour Northeast Corridor train 3926 derailed at low speed while negotiating its entry into Track 9 at New York's Penn Station.  Three cars of the train derailed around 9 a.m., and at least five of the 1200 riders were injured, although reportedly none of the injuries were serious. The train, one of the fastest runs on the railroad, runs nonstop from Princeton Junction to Newark. The two events in less than two weeks were bound to raise speculation that the rail infrastructure was becoming unreliable. By Thursday, both New York's MTA and NJ Gov. Christie were criticizing Amtrak for poor track maintenance, with Christie issuing a letter to Amtrak suspending NJ Transit's payments to Amtrak for use of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor tracks, and even asking his attorney general to claw back NJT's past payments, pending a "thorough and independent examination of track, signals, switches and other equipment maintained by Amtrak."  But New Jersey commuters were reportedly blaming Christie's cutbacks in NJT's funding and his general lack of attention to transit issues for what they see as an increasingly rickety system, whether or not Amtrak bears responsibility for the chaos the week of April 3.

To cope with the reduced station capacity, for four days NJ Transit ran its Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line trains on a "enhanced holiday" schedule, with far fewer trains in peak hours. Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton line "Midtown Direct" trains were diverted to the railroad's Hoboken terminal, where acute crowding resulted, aggravated by restricted access corridors owing to ongoing repairs after a September 29 crash of an inbound train that closed the principal walkway to the connecting PATH rapid transit system.  A bystander in the station died in that incident. Long Island Rail Road canceled peak hour trains all week, and Amtrak modified its Northeast Corridor, Keystone, and Empire Service schedules.

Reporting by Emma G. Fitzsimmons in the New York Times (April 5) said that by Tuesday, a "relatively minor mishap" had "casdaded into a transportation crisis, snarling travel up and down the East Coast, upending the lives of thousands of people, and vividly illustrating the fragile state of infrastructure in the nation's busiest transit corridor." The derailment occurred at a critical switching point, taking eight of the station's 21 tracks out of service; equipment was damaged that would apparently take at least several days  to repair. Amtrak, responsible for the track, said it could not predict when repairs would be complete.  According to the Times article, "Hoboken Terminal . . . became an extraordinary scene of gridlock as passengers leaving NJT trains struggled to make their way to PATH trains, buses, and ferries bound for Manhattan." Police even had to barricade the stairs leading to PATH to control the mob.  Commuters reported increased travel times; one rider from South Orange said it took two hours to reach her job at NYU. Some riders to Trenton on the Northeast Corridor even paid the $60 Amtrak fare to get home.

A "minor" derailment of an Amtrak Acela express train at the west end of New York's Penn Station resulted in a low-speed, sideswiping collision with an inbound NJ Transit train just after 9 a.m. on Friday, March 24, snarling traffic on all three railroads that use the at-capacity station for the rest of the day.  There were only a few injuries, all on the NJT train, and they were said to be minor. The outbound Acela was bound from Boston to Washington with about 250 passengers; the NJT train was inbound from Montclair State University and reportedly carried about 1000 commuters. Damage to the last two cars of the NJT train included scrape marks and pushed-in windows on the lowest level of the multi-level cars. The Amtrak train had not cleared the platform and its passengers were evacuated directly onto the station platform; similarly, the NJT train, which may have continued into the station, was emptied of its riders onto the platform.

The incident caused NJT and Amtrak traffic to be snarled for the rest of the day; NJT trains did not run for some time after the collision. Eventually, NJT established a modified schedule for the rest of the day, with inbound trains from the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast line running once per hour; a special schedule was published for the outbound evening rush, with about 10 trains schedule to depart between 5 and 6 p.m. Midtown Direct service (on the Morristown, Gladstone, and Montclair-Boonton lines) was diverted to Hoboken, and NJT warned of delays in and out of Hoboken due to the additional traffic. Raritan Valley Line trains operated only to Newark. PATH trains to Hoboken were reported to be very crowded, as NJT passengers sought alternative routings.

The other two railroads using Penn Station were also affected.  The Long Island Rail Road said it was able to maintain more or less normal service until the evening rush hour approached, at which time it had to implement a severely restricted schedule, since half the tracks in uses in the peak hours were not available. Passengers were advised to use the line's Atlantic Terminal station in Brooklyn to avoid the Penn Station mess. 

Amtrak ran its usual Northeast Corridor services, subject to delay; but Keystone Service trains to and from Harrisburg were terminated at Newark. Empire Service trains to and from New York State operated only to Yonkers, where Metro-North shuttles conveyed passengers to and from Grand Central Terminal instead of New York Penn.

By Saturday NJT was saying that services were back to normal, except for New York - Rahway services which remained canceled, and by Monday (March 27) all carriers were reporting normal service.

The reliability and comfort factors can be debated, but NJ Transit delivers tens of thousands of passengers to New York's Penn Station every day; reportedly, 57,000 NJT riders arrive at New York Penn in the peak weekday morning rush hours of 6-10 a.m.  OK, your train arrives at its platform . . . then what? Reporting by Melanie Grayce West and Andrew Tangel in the Wall Street Journal (March 21) has highlighted what riders have known for years: arrival at the platform can be the beginning, not the end, of the struggle. Years ago, when NJT was planning new trans-Hudson tunnels and a new station under 34 Street, advocates lambasted the plan, partly because the "deep cavern" station far below street level would be inconvenient to access, with riders taking 10 minutes or so to reach street level.  Gov. Christie canceled that plan, but is Penn Station any better in this regard? Platforms at Penn are narrow, and jammed in peak hours, and sometimes in off-hours as well. Sometimes two trains arrive or depart simultaneously on each side of the same platform; even worse can be the situation when a train arrives as another is preparing to depart across the platform, leading to collision between riders on access stairs.  Some new stairways have been constructed, but most are still gated shut, not ready to open. Escalators exist, but often are running the wrong way or are stopped; not infrequently, riders who find an escalator running the "wrong way" hit the emergency stop button, violating signs warning against the practice. Amtrak operates the station, which has undergone demolition, underground rebirth, upgrading and modernization since it opened in 1911, but the track and platform layout remains basically unchanged: 21 tracks shared by NJT, Amtrak, and the Long Island Rail Road. The passenger load has increased enormously since the station opened more than 100 years ago, but no new tracks have been built.  In contrast, Grand Central Terminal across town, which opened in the same era, was built with 67 tracks and has plenty of capacity.  What can be done to ease the crush? Building new tracks would take decades and may never happen. Why do the escalators run the wrong way?  NJT, in a familiar refrain, blames Amtrak for last-minute track assignment changes, perhaps due to a train with mechanical problems, or maybe a sick passenger.  The new stairways will open, eventually.  For now, riders can only grin and bear it, and factor the additional time into their trip planning.