It’s no way to run a railroad: For the fourth — yes, fourth — time in less than a week, commuters who rely on Penn Station train service faced major delays Monday as New Jersey Transit and Amtrak halted service, citing “overhead wire” issues.
That followed major backups on three days the week before (as well as problems in May), with wire problems also blamed for some of the trouble.
Amtrak, which owns the tracks into Penn, is responsible for maintaining the wires, though it blames some of the recent problems on NJ Transit — on a device called a pantograph mounted atop trains that can get caught up in the wires, for example.
Of course, riders don’t care who’s at fault; they just want to get to work and back in a reasonable time.
And they have every reason to demand that — especially as already-high NJ Transit fares are set to spike a whopping 15% on July 1, with 3% yearly bumps thereafter.
Indeed, the entire nation deserves better: America isn’t a third-world country, and the city is supposed to be a commercial world capital.
Commuters need dependable service in and out.
Hundreds of thousands of Garden Staters rely on NJ Transit each day — and train disruptions impact most of them, as rail troubles wind up crowding the buses (and the Port Authority-run PATH trains) too.
Meanwhile, the folks running these railroads can’t even say when the transit nightmare will end (if ever).
Even though some big bucks ($22 billion) are supposed to be pouring in from President Biden’s infrastructure programs, while his fellow Democrat, Gov. Phil Murphy, oversees NJ Transit.
Riders should be screaming their heads off to their elected representatives — and vote them out of office if they can’t get it fixed, be it Biden, Murphy or anyone else.
Recall that these commuters went through a “Summer of Hell” in 2017 for major maintenance work at Penn that saw several tracks shut down and some passengers forced to switch to PATH trains.
Is that kind of measure needed again?
Will it produce lasting fixes?
If so, level with the public and get it going pronto.
And quit the mutual finger-pointing: If those in charge — NJ Transit boss Kevin Corbett and Amtrak chief Roger Harris — can’t work together to stop the madness, put someone in their place who can.
Most important, make this an ultra-top priority.
Want to reduce motor vehicle traffic?
Well, forget congestion pricing; just get mass transit to work — and riders might switch on their own.
Letting train riders suffer endlessly, with no sense of what’s really going on nor how unreliable their commutes may soon become, is pure mismanagement.
And it gives commuters (and their employers) one more reason to look at fleeing to more workable regions.