OCTOBER 30, 2015, 2:42 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2015, 6:53 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Two dozen elected Democrats from across New Jersey gathered Friday morning in Paterson to announce a new coalition that will push to bring NJ Transit trains to a rail line through Bergen and Passaic counties that has not seen passenger service since the 1960s.
An earlier effort to bring passenger trains back to the line died in 2008, at least partly due to the recession that started that year, said Congressman Bill Pascrell, D – Paterson, who led Friday’s event. This effort is separate from one to extend the Hudson Bergen Light Rail into Bergen County.
The group got together in advance of discussions scheduled for next week in Congress next week about a bill to fund transportation construction projects for the next five years, after years of political deadlock that resulted in one short-term patch after another.
“We’re going to start talking about that Monday, so now’s the time to advance any projects we feel should be part of it,” Pascrell said.
Unmentioned was the fact that some of the officeholders who spoke Friday, including Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, D – Secaucus, are up for reelection on Tuesday. A poll released this week by the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University found that three-quarters of New Jersey residents have no idea the election is about to happen.
Is this a late April Fool’s joke? Service from Paterson to Hackensack; that’s it? Why no service up Route 23 to Upper Passaic and Sussex County? What a waste of money. Unless this service connects to the ferry terminal in Weehawken and/or Hoboken, it’s absolutely useless. There will be few riders between Hackensack and Paterson. Neither is a hub for employment and neither is a cultural center.
Waste of time and taxpayer money.
Station stops proposed in Hawthorne, Paterson, Elmwood Park, Saddle Brook, Rochelle Park, Maywood, and Hackensack. WTF? This is not a corridor in which there are thousands of riders going between those communities.
How about Mitdown Direct for Ridgewood? All you need is a connection in Secaucus…