The disaster response by NJ Transit and PATH is beyond deplorable. It's atrocious and defies common sense. The agency seems to think that it's done a good job in providing information to its customers, and yet there is a daily crush of thousands of commuters attempting to get home by way of one of the three rail lines servicing New Jersey other than the Atlantic City Line or the bus service that is wholly inadequate to pick up the slack.
All one has to do is look across the river to the MTA to see how disaster response should be handled.
The MTA faced as bad a crisis as anything that NJ Transit and the Port Authority faced combined. Miles of tracks were submerged and damaged. Seven rail tunnels were flooded as were several key stations. The entire system was impacted.
Yet, within days bus service was up and running and a week later subway service was resuming in the formerly flooded tunnels. This weekend will see still more service added, leaving just a handful of Lower Manhattan stations out of action plus a segment of the A line in the Rockaways that suffered catastrophic damage.
That compares with the PATH service, which is essentially out of action due to flooding of the two tunnels to the World Trade Center and damage to both the WTC and Hoboken terminals. They have a fraction of the track and stations to dewater, and yet they're taking even longer to restore service.
The same goes for NJ Transit and their rail lines.
The buses that NJ Transit are offering are wholly inadequate to the task and the agency can't even admit that they're not up to the task of attempting to provide service to hundreds of thousands of commuters that rely on mass transit on a daily basis.
An average train can move 800-1,000 people.
The average bus? 50? 60 if you pack them in tight? People who normally take rail are somehow supposed to get on a handful of buses that are already full with their ordinary riders. The existing bus schedule hasn't been increased to handle the overflow; people are somehow supposed to take the existing bus service, even though the Port Authority can't handle the crowds at the bus terminal.
There simply aren't enough scheduled buses to handle the loads. Even with emergency shuttle service from designated locations, people simply can't get to where they need to be - namely work.
And that doesn't even begin to describe the mess at the Port Authority. Not only have the crowds been a disaster waiting to happen, but what should normally be a 40 minute commute stretches to 3-4 times as long because buses aren't available, are delayed, or inadequate to deal with the crowds during peak rush hour. Waiting an hour or two can help alleviate the congestion, but people can't do that when they've got family and obligations back home. Some things can't wait until 8-9pm before attempting a commute home. Add to that the fact that phone and Internet service is poor inside the Port Authority and you get little information as to why the delays are occurring beyond the congestion one sees.
That was the case earlier this week when not only were there no buses coming into pick up any passengers for 45 minutes while I was waiting on line, but there was no indication as to why or when service would be restored. On a separate occasion, NJ Transit and Port Authority didn't explain why service was delayed for more than an hour just to exit the Port Authority and it took further digging to find out that the traffic delays from the Lincoln Tunnel were the result of downed lines that blocked access to the George Washington Bridge - backing up traffic for miles on end and forcing detours to avoid the congestion.
The NJ Transit response has been inadequate as to how and why trains aren't running on the Bergen or Pascack Valley lines either. They could claim that the trains couldn't run because of power outages at key locations along the routes, but with power now being restored, NJ Transit should be working with the utilities to get power restored so that key mass transit links get back up and running faster - reducing the need for people to drive to work (exacerbating the fuel crunch around the region).
Besides, NJ Transit has operated trains on the Main/Bergen/Pascack lines during outages in the past. It's slow and tedious, but it can be done. They aren't even attempting that.
It would even be plausible for NJ Transit to contend that they can't run the trains because of damage to their Rail Operations Center, but that should have been resolved as well. After all, if the MTA can dewater 6 of 7 tunnels and get service up and running, NJ Transit could and should be able to do the same.
At the same time, there are further delays due to the fact that Amtrak hasn't been able to get all of its Hudson and East River tunnels functioning. They're running at reduced capacity as well, and they're hopefully going to be able to get back up and running. That would alleviate much of the crunch for both Long Islanders and New Jerseyeans because trains would be able to access Penn Station easier.
Governor Christie must hold the agency accountable and thus far he's not done enough to get the agency moving in the right direction. That compares with the MTA, which has done a yeoman's job of keeping the public informed as well as answering and answerable to Goveror Cuomo. The response has been light night and day, and it has made an already difficult situation intolerable.
Whereas the MTA is transparent on its rebuilding efforts - daily updates including photos and news conferences, the NJ Transit site has done little beyond the initial posting that indicates the damage in general terms and not what the agency has done already to rectify the situation.
Friday, November 09, 2012
Monday, November 05, 2012
Making Hash of the Commute
I'm so glad I'm not commuting into NYC this morning.
NJ Transit is an absolute mess. They claimed that they had service restored on a couple of lines, but here's what that meant.
For Main/Port Jervis, it was 7 trains inbound in the morning, and 3 would get to New York City after what's normally considered rush hour (10-11am). No reverse commute trains. In the PM, you'd have the same situation - 7 outbound trains, with staggered times that include times outside rush hour.
Those attempting to do the commute found themselves in a mess - serious overcrowding. The overcrowding was so bad that #NJTransit suspended service on the North Jersey Coast Line service and customers utilizing the Woodbridge station were told to use Metropark station for service to/from Newark and New York.
Meanwhile, bus service isn't much better. Mrs. Lawhawk who had to get to court this morning, had to let three buses pass her by with standing room only before she found one with a seat. That's crazy.
But, once she got into the city, the commute was much smoother. The MTA has done a phenomenal job in restoring service, including to Lower Manhattan and service was being added faster than the MTA cartographers could update their service maps (which are being updated daily). When you think of all the millions of people who rely on the subways, Joe Lhota has done a tremendous job in getting service restored, even though some stations may be out of commission for a while - particularly in the Rockaways and South Ferry. Other lines are being bypassed because of lower ridership and the need to concentrate on the routes that have the ability to restore service to the greatest numbers of people in the shortest time. It means that some areas are still cutoff, including Williamsburg, Coney Island, and parts of Lower Manhattan, but if someone did a time lapse of the service maps, you'd see just how fast the service was restored.
Now, going forward the question will be how to prevent the disruptions we've seen from getting as bad as they were.
For starters - the feds and states ought to consider legislation requiring all gas stations to retrofit with generators (and in flood-prone areas - sufficiently elevated to reduce chances for disruption). That would allow people to refuel, and to power their generators to get power back quicker. It would alleviate traffic considerably and hasten the recovery rather than lose time to waiting in lines for gas.
New York should have implemented even/odd gas fill ups just as New Jersey did for affected counties. It's alleviated some of the lines around Bergen County - but restoring power does that even more.
New York State has to pony up to fund the MTA to get more storm mitigation in place - better drainage/pumping systems/flood gates to prevent the tunnels from getting swamped.
And in New Jersey, they've got to take a critical look at NJ Transit and how they were ill-prepared to deal with the storm and the after-effects. Did they not realize that people would attempt a commute during rush hour and the limited trains they would run would get overcrowded due to conditions.
It's the same problem they had after last year's storms (Irene and Lee). Now, we're going to see just how slow NJ Transit will be in restoring service, though it's not all their fault - PSEG has to restore power so that NJ Transit rail signals/gates can function. But that's another place where backup generators could make a difference.
NJ Transit is an absolute mess. They claimed that they had service restored on a couple of lines, but here's what that meant.
For Main/Port Jervis, it was 7 trains inbound in the morning, and 3 would get to New York City after what's normally considered rush hour (10-11am). No reverse commute trains. In the PM, you'd have the same situation - 7 outbound trains, with staggered times that include times outside rush hour.
Those attempting to do the commute found themselves in a mess - serious overcrowding. The overcrowding was so bad that #NJTransit suspended service on the North Jersey Coast Line service and customers utilizing the Woodbridge station were told to use Metropark station for service to/from Newark and New York.
Meanwhile, bus service isn't much better. Mrs. Lawhawk who had to get to court this morning, had to let three buses pass her by with standing room only before she found one with a seat. That's crazy.
But, once she got into the city, the commute was much smoother. The MTA has done a phenomenal job in restoring service, including to Lower Manhattan and service was being added faster than the MTA cartographers could update their service maps (which are being updated daily). When you think of all the millions of people who rely on the subways, Joe Lhota has done a tremendous job in getting service restored, even though some stations may be out of commission for a while - particularly in the Rockaways and South Ferry. Other lines are being bypassed because of lower ridership and the need to concentrate on the routes that have the ability to restore service to the greatest numbers of people in the shortest time. It means that some areas are still cutoff, including Williamsburg, Coney Island, and parts of Lower Manhattan, but if someone did a time lapse of the service maps, you'd see just how fast the service was restored.
Now, going forward the question will be how to prevent the disruptions we've seen from getting as bad as they were.
For starters - the feds and states ought to consider legislation requiring all gas stations to retrofit with generators (and in flood-prone areas - sufficiently elevated to reduce chances for disruption). That would allow people to refuel, and to power their generators to get power back quicker. It would alleviate traffic considerably and hasten the recovery rather than lose time to waiting in lines for gas.
New York should have implemented even/odd gas fill ups just as New Jersey did for affected counties. It's alleviated some of the lines around Bergen County - but restoring power does that even more.
New York State has to pony up to fund the MTA to get more storm mitigation in place - better drainage/pumping systems/flood gates to prevent the tunnels from getting swamped.
And in New Jersey, they've got to take a critical look at NJ Transit and how they were ill-prepared to deal with the storm and the after-effects. Did they not realize that people would attempt a commute during rush hour and the limited trains they would run would get overcrowded due to conditions.
It's the same problem they had after last year's storms (Irene and Lee). Now, we're going to see just how slow NJ Transit will be in restoring service, though it's not all their fault - PSEG has to restore power so that NJ Transit rail signals/gates can function. But that's another place where backup generators could make a difference.
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