$1.7 billion to extend the PATH rapid transit system to Newark Liberty International Airport is included in the long term capital plan introduced by the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on January 5, according to reporting by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media (Jan. 6). The budget plan also includes $1.5 billion to build a light rail link between La Guardia Airport in Queens and the No. 7 city subway line. But the most controversial part of the capital plan was the inclusion of $3.5 billion for a new Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan; critics said the amount budgeted was only a fraction of the total need of $8-10 billion, and that money would be harder to come by in the future if not budgeted now.  Some advocates have suggested a better plan would be to build a new bus terminal in New Jersey, in the Secaucus area most likely, and forward passengers to Manhattan via new commuter rail links or an extension of the No. 7 subway line, but bus rider advocates have derided such a solution as not providing a single-seat ride to Manhattan. Others have emphasized the need for a new bus terminal as an alternative in case the existing two-track rail tunnel under the Hudson should fail, crippling the existing rail service and forcing many to transfer to buses.

After nearly 100 years since it was originally planned, subway trains rolled for the first time on New Years' Day. The new line comprises only four new stops on the "Q" Train beyond the former terminal at 7th Avenue and 57th Street: 63d Street and Lexington Avenue and 72d, 86th and 96th Streets under Second Avenue. The first train was scheduled to leave 57th Street at 12:00 noon, and it actually left at 12:02. The journey to 96th Street was slow, requiring 19 minutes. After a 15-minute layover, the same train traversed the line in the other direction, taking 18 minutes to reach 57th Street and then taking the rest of the historic BMT route to Coney Island.

The new route is dug deep underground, and is distinguished by stations with long escalators and spacious full-length mezzanines. The new line is short, and critics have called it the "Second Avenue Stubway." Transit managers plan three more extensions of the line, with construction scheduled to begin on a northward extension to 12t5th Street 2019. The line is supposed to extend the length of Manhattan, to the Financial District at the island's southern tip. Since the line was originally planned in the early 1920s, nobody knows when it will be completed.

In the meantime, the residential portion of the Upper East Side has new subway service. Since the elevated lines along Second and Third Avenues were torn down more than 60 years ago, the Lexington Avenue subway has been the only line serving much of Manhattan's East Side. Transit managers and riders hope that the new line on Second Avenue will relieve some of the overcrowding on the "Lex" Line.

A proposal to add real commuters top NJ Transit's Board of Directors moved one step closer to reality as the state Senate passed a bill to accomplish this; the bill now moves to the desk of Gov. Christie, according to reporting by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media. If signed by the Governor, one rail and one bus commuter would sit on the board as full, voting members. The two commuters would be nominated by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Michael Phelan, co-founder of the New Jersey Commuters Action Network (NJ-CAN) said that "Board members, with very few exceptions, are not currently regular passengers on NJ Transit trains or buses. Therefore, they lack the unique perspective that commuters have gained." The bill was introduced by State Senator Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), and passed with a vote of 36-0 on December 20.

A better type of track bumper might have reduced damage and injuries in the fatal Sept. 29 crash at NJ Transit's Hoboken terminal, according to reporting by David Porter for the Associated Press, and published in the Star-Ledger (Dec. 23). The most modern type of bumper is equipped with hydraulic shock absorbers and sled-like friction shoes, which gradually absorb the energy from a train that collides with the bumper.  No bumper is designed to safely stop a train moving as fast as the 21 mph the inbound train was reported moving on Sept. 29, but a better bumper might well have reduced the damage. Just one track, Track 15, at Hoboken has the new-style bumper; the rest, including where the crash occurred, have rigid concrete-and-steel bumpers, in service since the terminal opened in 1907.  In contrast, NJT's Atlantic City terminal, built 25 years ago, has modern bumpers.  But there's a downside to installing the improved bumpers: in order to slow  a train gradually, they take up track space, reducing the length of trains a platform can accommodate. NJT Executive Director Steve Santoro says NJT would  be forced to run trains "at least" one car shorter, and that new bumpers would "exacerbate an issue that already exists in terms of track length." "We would like every platform to be a 10-car platform, but can't do that." Santoro said that train-length constraints are a physical problem that NJT has to deal with in designing its operations.  Safer bumpers would make those constraints a bigger problem.

The historical model for the automobile may be changing, according to reporting in "Wheels" in the New York Times (Dec. 23) by Neal E. Boudette. The old model: you need a car to get anywhere. Today, there are alternatives, including ride-hailing services such as Uber and even self-driving cars; and public transit is experiencing a renaissance.  But for many people, you still need to get that "first mile" to the local train station or bus stop. How to get there?  For years, automakers didn't concern themselves with that part of the journey: how to get people to transit was regarded as a problem for the transit agency to solve.  But as the market changes, and many younger Americans aren't focused on owning two cars, or even one car, as a life goal. Self-driving cars may be one solution, and General Motors is ready to test a fleet of such vehicles with Uber competitor Lyft. Ford is also exploring the market. How will this affect the long-term profitability of the car makers?  They are betting that sales to fleets, such as Uber or Lyft, will offset losses in the individual-owner market. Consulting firm PwC forecasts that, by 2030, only 29% of automotive profits will come from new-car sales; 20% will come from the new "mobility services" sector, which includes ride-hailing and first mile/last mile transportation. And self-driving cars will help alleviate the endemic problem of public transit: once you've driven to the train station, where do you park your car?

Two months after the fatal Sept. 29 crash at Hoboken in which an incoming train inexplicably increased its speed and crashed through its end-of-track bumper block, another inbound train derailed as it was entering the terminal on Sunday, Dec. 4, as reported by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media on Dec. 7 (and published in the Star-Ledger on Dec. 8). This train was apparently moving within speed limits, which had been reduced from 10 mph to 5 mph following the September crash, and crew actions were apparently not at fault in this case, according to an NJT spokesperson. No injuries were reported on the train, which had left Waldwick at 11:35 a.m.  Mechanical factors are being investigated, which raises the possibility that neglected maintenance may have been a factor.  Mechanical problems are increasingly blamed for delays on the NJT rail system, which have become an almost daily occurrence for commuters.  The rate of mechanical failures on the NJT system has been reported as higher than that on other commuter rail networks.

When the Republican Party solidified its control over the federal government by taking the White House and retaining both houses of Congress in last month's elections, you could hear the moans from transit advocates: the Republicans have never been noted for attention to transit, other than trying to reduce government subsidies for it.  But could president-elect Donald Trump be an exception?  Maybe so, says Paul Mulshine in an opinion column (Dec. 8) in the Star-Ledger.  Mulshine points out that whatever the general orientation of the GOP, Trump is a New Yorker at heart and so understands the need for transit infrastructure; he's publicly announced his support for fixing the nation's crumbling underpinnings; and he has prided himself on the ability to "get things done," particularly in the construction field.  Mulshine points out how long it can take to get things done, given a cumbersome environmental review process, and goes back to the failed "ARC" project, saying that an originally good project was "picked apart by bureaucrats piece by piece and eventually we were building a 'tunnel to Macy's Basement' that couldn't be shared with Amtrak."  Mulshine finishes up his column with extensive quoting of Lackawanna Coalition Chair David Peter Allan, noting the Coalition's support of service on the Lackawanna Cutoff (to Pennsylvania) which had to go through a "long, costly environmental review."  Mulshine quotes Alan as saying, "I don't see why we can't have a streamlined environmental review procedure to bring back passenger rail service to lines that once had it;" Mulshine then says "I don't either."

Everybody seems to agree that the aging Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan cannot cope with the demands that increasing ridership imposes on it, but what is to be done?  Options include building a new terminal, likely some distance closer to the Hudson River than the present edifice, or even terminating buses in New Jersey and forwarding passengers into the Apple by rail -- assuming new rail tunnels would even make that possible. The problem is in the lap of the Port Authority, a bistate agency in which the governors of New York and New Jersey share responsibility for its actions and appointing its leaders. The sharp divide within the Port Authority during the now-famous "Bridgegate" crisis in 2013 is emblematic, as employees loyal to N.J. Gov. Christie closed lanes in an apparent political act, while Port Authority employees loyal to N.Y. Gov. Cuomo tried to get them reopened. The Port Authority, with its vast revenues derived from various sources including ever-increasing tolls on cross-Hudson bridges and tunnels, remains a source of considerable power for both states.  In the case of the bus terminal, cost estimates range from $3.5 to $13.5 billion for the project, but the Authority's ten-year capital plan, drawn up in 2014, did not include any funding at all.  Now, attempts to include the bus terminal in the formal plan have run into a stalemate: New Jersey advocates, notably the Authority's Chairman, John Degnan (a Christie appointee) have demanded that at least $3.5 billion be included in the budget for a new terminal.  New York advocates, apparently at the instigation of N.Y. Gov. Cuomo, have insisted that $2 billion is as far as they will go.  And Gov. Cuomo has at least once directed his appointees to make sure that nothing gets done at the agency's monthly board meeting, and seemed poised to do it again, apparently to make sure that a lot of money does not get earmarked for what New York sees as a project largely benefiting only New Jersey. A full report appeared by Patric McGeehan in the New York Times (Dec. 7).

Engineer Thomas Gallagher, who was at the controls of the NJ Transit train that crashed at Hoboken on Sept. 29, recently was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, according to his lawyer, Jack Arseneault. Mr. Gallagher has said he has no memory of the crash, in which his train unaccountably accelerated to more than twice the allowed speed within the station; brakes were applied only seconds before the train impacted the bumper block at the end of the track, crashed through it, and came to rest in a pedestrian area, killing a bystander. More than 100 were injured, mostly on the train. The new development was reported by Emma G. Fitzsimmons in the New York Times (Nov. 17). According to the National Institutes of Health, sleep apnea can cause daytime sleepiness. Mr. Gallagher's recollection is that he did everything he was supposed to do, "and the next thing he knew he was on the floor," according to Arseneault. NJ Transit, which cleared Gallagher for service after a physical exam in July, said it was not authorized to discuss employees' medical information, but that it had a sleep apnea screening program.  The disorder had been implicated in a crash on Metro-North Railroad in 2014. Lawyer Arsenault said that Gallagher is an "extremely heavy man" with a large neck circumference, adding "I believe common sense indicates that a man like that could be subject to suffering from adult sleep apnea."

NJ Transit's executive director, Steven Santoro, finally got to testify before Trenton legislators on Friday, Nov. 4, after incurring their ire by not showing up at an October session.  According to reporting by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media, Santoro's testimony covered a range of topics including safety, federal audits of the railroad's procedures and record, and progress on installation of Positive Train Control (Santoro said a six-mile test section will be in place on the Morris & Essex lines in April); Santoro said NJT is on schedule to complete PTC installation by the December, 2018 federal deadline.  But most of interest to NJT's customers is Santoro's disclosure that NJT will not ask for a fare increase before mid-2018. On the question of safety, Santoro admitted that accidents on NJT exceed in number those of other systems, but cautioned that NJT may using criteria that include more incidents as accidents than other systems do.  He pointed out that only six percent of the "accidents" exceed the damage threshold of $100,000 above which they must be reported to the Federal Railroad Administration, and also that NJT's rate of accidents per million passenger miles is actually lower than the average for all commuter railroads.

In reporting by Emma G. Fitzsimmons in the New York Times (Nov. 5), some details of safety violations uncovered by a federal audit were disclosed in Santoro's testimony.  These included workers' use of personal cell phones while on duty; failure to properly test brakes; and failure to blow horns at crossings. Santoro called the findings unacceptable and vowed to crack down on employees who violate rules, citing increased inspections and penalties for violators.  The Times article also reported that Santoro apologized multiple times for missing the previous legislative hearing, citing that he had only been on the job a few days and wanted to learn more about NJT's state of affairs before coming to Trenton.