Legislation that would have put a one year freeze on all state funded short line rail expansion plans was watered down by New Jersey’s Senate Transportation Committee recently. After the Assembly (MTR #480) narrowed the focus of the legislation to only effect the reactivation of the Rahway and Staten Island lines in Union County and another line in Middlesex County; the Senate committee removed the “Union County” provision.  The legislation now would basically stall work on one rail line, for one year.

Ironically, this legislation was first proposed by Senator Kean (R-Union) and his Assembly counterparts Eric Munoz and Jon Bramnick to stall construction on the freight rail lines that would run through Union while a “Smart Freight Growth” study was completed.  After protests from railroads and rail advocates that they were pursuing a statewide solution to a local concern; the bill was pared down to just the Union and Middlesex projects.

A second irony is that while truck traffic continues to grow, the NJDOT has been so slow in moving forward with needed rail improvements that had this bill been passed when it was proposed in May of 2004, it would have expired with little noticeable impact on the reactivation of these rail lines.