TRENTON – “We can and we must do a better job on communications,” NJ Transit Executive Director Kevin Corbett told lawmakers this morning, in response to a question posed by Senator Vin Gopal (D-11).

“My constituents are blaming me,” Gopal said, referring to the summer shutdown of trains in his district and elsewhere. “What can be done better so they don’t find out the day of? I found out about a lot of these cancelations through news reports. What can we do so we can educate our residents. I’ve got to give them at least an hour’s heads up.”

The senator urged a text to communicators and some kind of explanation as to why a specific train if not operating.

“[That] would help a lot of morning for a lot of my residents,” the senator said.

Citing years of underfunding, Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said the current budget allocations – including a $242 million increase – are satisfactory.

She told Gopal that NJ Transit has 330 engineers in the system right now.

At a bare minimum, they require 291 to run the system.

They would like to have 400 in order to secure a comfort zone.

Corbett told Assemblyman Tom Giblin (D-34) that the engineers make on average about $100,000 with overtime, while conductors make on average $60-70K.