TENTON, N.J. — For six days in July, equipment failures forced New Jersey Transit trains to share a single Hudson River tunnel, delaying Manhattan commuters as long as 90 minutes.
Such disruptions will mount even if Amtrak, the national passenger railroad that owns the century-old tracks, makes repairs and builds replacements, which could take until 2030.
New Jersey Transit’s solution calls for flexible bosses.
In the event of a prolonged shutdown, the agency is counting on about one-third of its more than 165,000 daily Manhattan commuters to work from their houses. About 60,000 would be channeled to ferries and the rest could go by “a robust bus program,” said Nancy Snyder, a spokeswoman. Undetermined is what that would cost, or who would pay for such a workaround.
“This tunnel is going to be harder and harder to keep functioning reliably,” said Stephen Gardner, Amtrak’s executive vice president for Northeast Corridor business development. “It’s unreasonable to expect that there’s not going to be further kinds of disruptions or additional outages needed over several years ahead.”
New Jersey Transit, the nation’s third-largest commuter system, has few options. The ability to cross-honor, or send rail ticketholders to buses and the PATH subway during service interruptions, is constrained by space at the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan.
“For both bus and rail we are at or near full capacity in the peak,” Snyder said in an e-mail. Alternative transportation costs were too difficult to forecast, she said, because “many variables” can affect pricing.
“Amtrak has yet to come up with a plan or schedule regarding tunnel repairs that are expected to take place over the next 20 years,” Snyder said. “Until that happens, New Jersey Transit cannot speculate on the type of alternatives that may be necessary.”
