(rshsdepot) New & Improved NJ Transit Stations

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From today's New York Times.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
New and Improved Stations Top List of Rail Projects to Benefit Riders  
By JENNIFER V. HUGHES
 
JAMES PETERS has been taking the _New Jersey Transit_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_jersey_transit/index.html?inl
ine=nyt-org)  train from Trenton for more than a  decade, so long that he 
remembers when it used to be “just a Roy Rogers with a  train station.”  
The Trenton station has grown, but Mr. Peters said the concourse area was  
crowded and its retail offerings limited. So he is thrilled that by the end of  
the year, a major renovation project is scheduled to be finished.  
“What they’re doing now is really going to be beautiful,” said Mr. Peters,  
who lives in Langhorne, Pa., and commutes to the Jersey City and Manhattan  
offices of Lehman Brothers. 
The renovations will triple the size of the Trenton station and add about  
6,600 square feet of retail space, said Richard R. Sarles, New Jersey Transit’s  
executive director. A main focus of the construction is to widen the  
overpass/concourse area where passengers wait, buy tickets and cross over the  tracks 
to change trains, he said.  
Mr. Peters said there was often a bottleneck in that narrow area.  
“People are waiting for a train, and you have 500 people coming up the  
stairs, and you have people lollygagging waiting for an outbound train, and  you’re 
trying not to knock each other down,” he said.  
The Trenton project is one of several New Jersey Transit initiatives that  
should be completed or make a significant impact on riders in 2008, Mr. Sarles  
said.  
Douglas John Bowen, a transit advocate who is president of the New Jersey  
Association of Railroad Passengers, said he was generally pleased with New  
Jersey Transit’s overall service and planned changes but feared that too many  
improvements were tied to commuters headed into Manhattan.  
“What they need to do is look more into intrastate possibilities,” Mr. Bowen 
 said. 
Penny Bassett Hackett, a New Jersey Transit spokeswoman, said the agency was  
doing that, noting, for example, that there are plans to study ridership in 
and  out of Newark for the first time in about 30 years. 
Another change riders will see in 2008 will be more multilevel cars, which  
can carry about 30 more seated passengers than traditional cars. Fifty-five are 
 in service now, and this year 130 will be added, mostly to the Northeast  
Corridor Line. 
In addition the agency will install 90 of its new ticket vending machines,  
Mr. Sarles said. About 57 of these more advanced machines are already in place. 
 One improvement: If a rider routinely uses the same credit card, the new  
machines remember the last purchase and offer it as an option, speeding up the  
process, Mr. Sarles said.  
In January, two new park-and-ride stations are scheduled to open — in Wayne  
and in Mount Arlington, Mr. Sarles said. The Wayne station, on Route 23 near 
its  intersection with Routes 80 and 46, will offer rail service on the  
Montclair-Boonton Line and also will have bus service into Manhattan and  locally. 
There will be 1,000 parking spaces.  
The Mount Arlington station, off Route 80, currently offers park-and-ride bus 
 service to Manhattan, but rail service, also on the Montclair-Boonton Line, 
will  be added in January, Mr. Sarles said. There are currently about 250 
parking  spots; 60 will be added, he said.  
David Peter Alan, chairman of a transit group, the Lackawanna Coalition, said 
 that bus/train park-and-rides were good in theory but could be problematic  
because bus and train schedules are rarely synchronized. (Ms. Bassett Hackett  
said New Jersey Transit tries to coordinate schedules.)  
But more important, Mr. Alan said, he had a fundamental problem with a  
park-and-ride station.  
“You can’t decongest the roads if people have to drive a car to get to 
public  transit,” he said. 
Major improvements are scheduled for several other stations, including Newark 
 Broad Street and Metropark. 
The Broad Street waiting area will be renovated and high-level platforms will 
 be installed, allowing passengers to get on and off trains without using 
stairs,  Mr. Sarles said. That project is expected to be completed by the spring. 
 
At the Metropark station, Mr. Sarles said, longer and wider platforms that  
will allow longer trains to stop are being constructed, and shelters with  
climate control will be built on the platform level. 




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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1657
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org