MTR 258, NJ Transit Zeroes Out New Rail Projects Until 2004

Mobilizing the Region
Issue 258 February 25, 2000

NJ Transit Zeroes Out New Rail Projects Until 2004

Controversy at the Feb. 14 TPA meeting also surrounded NJ Transit's part of the capital program. Experienced players like former House Transportation Committee chair Robert Roe and local elected officials alike were stunned when NJ Transit released a plan that dropped its entire New Rail Starts program ($40 million), abandoned an earlier agreement to spend $3 million to operate local train station jitneys, and otherwise substantially altered funding for over half of the items in its capital program. In light of NJ Transit Board chair Jim Weinstein's remarks at a January Alliance for Action, where he proclaimed public transit as the future of mobility in New Jersey, the NJ Transit budget brought usually staid TPA regulars close to a frenzy.

Roe and others claimed that deferring new rail starts had already cost the agency $17 million because it had delayed on the NY Susquehanna & Western commuter rail restoration project for so long (Roe got the earmark for NJ in the 1991 ISTEA), and that southern and western states would not tolerate more funding requests from NJ when TEA-21 expires if the state hadn't put aside some of its own money.

The $40 million loss for new rail projects included monies for one of several options under consideration in Bergen County, Union County light rail, restoration of passenger service on the West Trenton line, and the Middlesex-Ocean-Monmouth line. Other cuts were $12 million for planning for a new Penn Station/Hudson River tunnel, $11 million in upgrades to permit more service on the Main, Bergen and Pascack Valley lines and $17 million for Hudson Bergen light rail phase 2.

NJ Transit officials' weak reply that the agency had all the money it needed to do necessary planning and that no projects would be stalled was met with disbelief. When elected officials came close to accusing NJ Transit of purposely delaying projects because its planners don't think they are worthy of construction, the NJ Transit rep coyly noted that he'd learned, after four years at DOT, never to say the agency didn't want to build a highway or transit project.

Since the meeting, NJT has attempted to appease elected officials on the TPA board by restoring $10 million per year for new starts and setting aside $1 million in federal funds for jitney operating funds. The source of the $10 million has yet to be identified, however. It seems unlikely that the Governor's 1998 "Vision Statement" goal of two new rail starts will be realizing in NJT's current planning environment.

A capital program deal, if there is one, must be struck within a week; the program will be delivered by DOT to the Legislature for approval by the March 1^st statutory deadline.