NJ Transit Screws Commuters Again; Stealth Station Elimination Targets Garfield Commuters

I've chastized NJ Transit incessantly for their unending series of miscommunications and inability to have a rational transit system.

This is another one of those opportunities.

NJ Transit recently spent millions of dollars (portion funded by the stimulus package- ARRA of 2009) to build a new Plauderville station. It's got two high level platforms, a heated waiting area, new access, and electronic signs. This is a state of the art station that meets ADA requirements.

In all of its efforts, the one thing NJ Transit forgot to do was tell anyone that it was all but phasing out service at the nearby Garfield station. Several key trains that stop at Garfield are being discontinued at the end of the month, making the commute for these people far more costly or difficult.

Garfield is located in fare zone 4.

Plauderville is located in fare zone 5.

That means that the monthly cost for a commuter being forced to switch locations is going from $169 to $193 a month for New York bound traffic and from $133 to $156 for Hoboken bound traffic.

Note that when NJ Transit introduced the Ramsey Route 17 station, it kept the station in the fare zone as Ramsey (zone 12). This is a disparity that makes little sense.

It makes even less sense considering that the stop being eliminate is shoehorned between the existing stops at Rutherford and Plauderville; the schedule isn't adversely affected forcing a schedule change. The station dwell time at Garfield doesn't affect the overall schedule by more than a minute or two, so the only explanation is that NJ Transit intends to eliminate Garfield's downtown station altogether.

Now, this might make sense down the line (such as when a new station is built on the Bergen Line in Wood-Ridge) but NJ Transit once again failed to communicate its plans to commuters who now have to scramble to find alternative transit options (such as driving to Wood-Ridge or Passaic or Delawanna) or finding one of the few remaining trains that stop in Garfield. It's a tremendous inconvenience to those commuters.

NJ Transit has a long and infamous history of making transit decisions that boggle the mind; this is another one.

NJ Transit Begins Work On New Wood-Ridge Station

NJ Transit, in conjunction with a real estate project on the former Wright-Curtis engine factory site, is going ahead with a new train station in Wood-Ridge along the Bergen Line. The new station is about 2 miles from the existing Garfield Station that isn't ADA compliant - and is barely functional as a train station. Moreover, the location is south of where it was first planned because the track curves too much to safely handle a raised (high-level) platform.


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The location abuts residential homes that are now affected by the station, and they are complaining about the siting of the new station despite the fact that they've been located adjacent to busy rail traffic for decades.

My concerns about the new station are two-fold.

The new station is in addition to the nearby new Plauderville station and the existing Garfield station and NJ Transit already lacks the ability to fully operate trains on the Bergen Line. The agency cut the schedule last year and the construction of a new station will require additional operating costs that the agency can't handle. It couldn't maintain its existing schedule and cut trains to existing stations, but now expects to bring stops to a new station? Rather than eliminating a functionally obsolete station in Garfield, the agency will operate local service to still more stations, increasing the commute time for all involved.

Garfield would essentially become obsolete because two new stations are under construction within 2 miles of either side of the existing stop. Plauderville is getting a new high level platform station adjacent to its new parking lot, and the Wood-Ridge stop (Wesmont) would have a similar setup.

Additional stops mean that local trains will run more slowly and affect traffic up and down the Bergen Line. It will extend the commuting time of existing commuters, and while the new project is expected to bring new riders as part of a transit-village style setup, the fact is that NJ Transit can't afford to build new stations when existing stations are falling apart or are barely functional.

Garfield is a prime example, and now NJ Transit will essentially maintain three stations in the Garfield corridor when the ridership can't sustain that kind of move unless NJ Transit shutters the Garfield station to optimize its operations.

Don't expect that to happen, even though the Garfield corridor is frequently the site of trespasser accidents and fatalities because the track curves several times and has numerous grade-crossings. Eliminating the Garfield station would improve safety along the corridor and improve commutes for residents.

This follows a trend of NJ Transit building new stations (or overbuilding stations where demand is seriously lacking) where residents are not indicating a need, and then lacking the revenues to fully operate scheduled train service where it was needed.