New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Secretary of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced plans for “NJ TransitGrid” Monday, Aug. 26, 2013, to make passenger rail infrastructure in the Garden State more self-sustaining and flexible in the face of future emergencies.
Two advocacy groups on Monday, June 24, 2013 filed a petition with the Surface Transportation Board to block New Jersey Transit Corp. and Princeton University from hacking away at NJT’s Princeton Branch, a branch line linking its namesake town with Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
Eight New York State legislators are urging the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to pursue an elusive “one-seat ride” to New York-Penn Station for Rockland and Orange county residents, tying it to Amtrak’s Gateway Tunnel plan to increase Northeast Corridor capacity under the Hudson River.
Criticized for its response last fall to Superstorm Sandy, and the resultant damage to much of its rolling stock, New Jersey Transit has responded by securing storage space at two locations adjacent to its rail system but in more flood-resistant interior portions of the state.
As I write this, it’s been just a week since I returned from the recent annual Rail Transit Conference sponsored the first week of June by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) in Philadelphia. It was an interesting event, with a lot I could report about, including my own presentation at the “Current Technology and Trends” session. But by far my most memorable experience was completing (or should I say “surviving”?) another of Tom Hickey’s legendary multimode, multi-system rail-hopping tours — this one sampling 14 different transit modes or lines in the Philadelphia region, operated by three different agencies, in the course of 10 hours.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced May 30 that that the USDOT “has begun the process of fulfilling Amtrak’s request for $185 million in Hurricane Sandy Relief funding.”
