Guadagno Should Try NJ Transit on Her Bus Tour

Lieutenant Governor and Republican Gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno will be taking a bus tour of all 21 New Jersey counties this week. She has stated her main talking points as “lowering taxes” and “not making NJ a sanctuary state”. What she has failed to mention, however, is how as Lt. Governor, her and Governor Christie’s Administration has make our state’s environment and public transportation worse.

“This bus tour is likely the first time Guadagno has taken mass transit as Lt. Governor. She should have taken NJ Transit and experienced the unreliability that the rest of the citizens of our state must deal with every day. The problem is people are paying more to get to work later and later. The busses are old and falling apart and constantly delayed. More people want to take public transit, but ridership is down because of all the issues with the agency. With more people stuck on NJ Transit, it hurts the economy because people will be late to work and productivity will go down. Thanks to her and Christie’s Administration, NJ Transit has gone from one of the best mass transit systems in the country to an unfunded mess,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

New data from NJ Transit says that trains are breaking down more in 2017 than they did in 2016. The agency’s data also stated that trains and light rail are traveling fewer miles before breaking down compared to trains on other commuter rails in the region like Long Island Rail Road or Metro North. The agency reached a high for rail reliability in September 2016, but then started falling in October 2016 and kept declining through early 2017. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) data from 2015 ranked the agency’s commuter trains the worst in the nation for breakdowns. The FTA also ranked NJ Transit buses sixth worst in the nation for breaking down in 2015.

“This data shows exactly why people are gambling whether the train will arrive on time or whether they can get to work on time. People are actually surprised when NJ Transit is on time because delays and break downs is the new norm. Now instead of adding more service and helping commuters, they keep cutting back. We have already seen delay after delay when there is no re-routing service to other areas.  While NJ Transit is re-routing so many commuters, they have failed to invest in our crumbling mass transit system is crumbling. This is because the Christie/Guadagno Administration has no funding for operations and maintenance,” said Jeff Tittel.

While ridership has gone up 20 percent, capital spending has gone down 19 percent. We even received $8 billion in federal funding for capital improvements, but that money went to operations and maintenance because NJ Transit is broke. The NJ Transit train crash into the Hoboken station killed at least one person and injured more than 100 people. The incident occurred because the train was going too fast as it pulled into the station. At other terminals including Penn Station, if the engineer is speeding, but fails to press a button, an automated system immediately applies emergency brakes. However, no such automatic braking system exists on any NJ Transit locomotives nor have employees received the training. The National Transportation Safety Board estimates braking systems like Positive Train Control could have prevented 145 accidents since 1969 which killed 296 people and injured 6,700.

“The Christie/Guadagno Administration’s transit policies have clearly caused hikes in fares, getting rid of off peak pricing, cuts to maintenance all resulting in a drop-in customer satisfaction. Due to all of these delays and breakdowns, people are getting in their car causing more traffic on our roads and air pollution. Ridership has been dropping meaning a loss of revenue and possibly more cuts in the future. The people still riding NJ Transit keep paying more to get to work late because of delays and accidents. This has added to traffic, pollution, and sprawl, while causing NJ Transit to go to ruin. The problem is all of NJ Transit’s issues has not only has hurt commuters, but it hurts our economy, and the environment,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.