Transit Talk

It's time for the holidays in the NYC metro area, and the authorities have announced a gridlock alert day, because of the insane amount of traffic heading into Manhattan.

So what does NJ Transit do this morning? They decide to run my Bergen County line train two cars short of its normal compliment.

This is the fourth or fifth time since the beginning of November that they've done this. It makes no sense. At a time when you're trying to convince people to get out of their cars and use mass transit, NJ Transit provides fewer seats for riders who have to stand for their rides into the City.

Then, there's this missive posted on the NJ Transit website that should get a wee bit more attention than it has. NJ Transit has announced that Amtrak is requiring trains on the Northeast Corridor to reduce speeds along 26 miles of track in New Jersey because they've uncovered problems with the concrete railroad ties that support the tracks. They've got to replace those ties, but until they do, instead of a maximum speed of 90 mph along those segments, the top speed will be 65 mph.

That doesn't count the dozens of miles in New Jersey where the trains have to limit their speeds because the overhead transmission lines are incapable of handling the higher speeds.

We've been getting bombarded with stories in the media about air congestion and the problems at the New York metro airports because there are simply too many planes trying to fly in and out of the City at the same time. I had warned way back in July that these stories would be coming despite the fact that everyone knew we had a couple of years of respite from the congestion problems after 9/11. Nothing was done in the interim to fix the problems, so we're staring at the same situation all over again.

I've argued that if you want to reduce air congestion, you have to improve rail service along the NE corridor to make it more competitive with air traffic. Indeed, rail stations in DC, NYC, and Boston are in the heart of those cities, and if high speed rail service were properly implemented, you could have a reduction in flights between those cities because rail traffic could compete.

The problem is that Amtrak has so completely botched things that it is virtually impossible to count on rail service to bail out the air traffic mess. Amtrak built Acela cars that can't hit their planned top speed because the train sets were built incorrectly, and, as noted above, the overhead catenary lines can't handle the speeds. Add to that the fact that the concrete ties installed by Amtrak are failing prematurely and the power distribution system for the NE corridor is barely able to handle the existing traffic, one has to question the government's commitment to fixing the problem.

I've also argued that better utilizing Stewart Airport, which has now been taken over by the Port Authority, would help. It's still a long way from being fully incorporated, and the Port Authority has to do far more if it wants to reduce congestion at the airports.