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Metrolink is a total joke. They run a grand total of 7 trains to DTLA on the Orange County Line on rush hour mornings (before noon). 10 trains to DTLA on rush hour mornings on the San Bernardino Line. Both have gaps of multiple hours in the middle of the day. And those are the two busiest lines in the system.
Compare that to, e.g., the Montclair-Boonton Line, which runs 16 trains to NY-Penn and another 14 trains to Hoboken before noon every day. Or 27 trains to NY-Penn and 23 to Hoboken before noon on the Morris and Essex Line. Or 31 trains to Secaucus and Hoboken on the Main and Bergen County Lines before noon.
I wouldn't say it's a total joke as I said, works for some but it's not all things to all people (neither is NJT.) The issue is that the last train for some of the lines out of DTLA is 6:30pm. What if you wanted to go out or work late?
Not sitting in traffic though? Priceless. That's why it has to be great for those in OC and Eastern LA who make it work.
Although problem with NJT is the fact that driving and parking to a hub station takes less time than riding some of these commuter lines when you have to make all these stops in bumble**** towns. When I lived in Warren driving to Newark and taking NJT was a faster option into midtown than taking the train to Gilette. Not to mention that it's actually cheaper to do what I did over riding the train all the way to NY Penn from Gilette everyday.
I am relatively new to commuting to Manhattan, but I still cannot get over the fact that there is one tunnel into the city and one tunnel out of the city as far as NJ Transit and Amtrak go.
There was plans to build a new tunnel...hmmm...some Governor shot it down.
And he lied about NJ paying for it all. The GAO said we'd be on hook for 14%, not 70% as Tubby claimed. Now we're at full capacity under the Hudson with nothing being planned whatsoever in the future. He's so short-sighted about certain things.
I am relatively new to commuting to Manhattan, but I still cannot get over the fact that there is one tunnel into the city and one tunnel out of the city as far as NJ Transit and Amtrak go.
Well there is only a single tunnel into NJ because as with much of the rest of the system neither that state nor New York built much of the infrastructure.
The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) built the tunnel, Penn Station and much if not all the ROW for their needs, passenger and or freight rail service. Later Amtrak and New Jersey inherited and or purchased in the wake of Pennsy's demise.
Like any other private railroad or company for that matter, then the PRR wanted funds for infrastructure projects it could float bonds or sell stock to fund, Amtrak does not have that sort of heft so the only place to turn are the two main states involved, New Jersey and New York.
New York City is making lots of noises to "recreate" the old and demolished Penn Station by using the Farley Post Office and now it seems wanting to tear down MSG, but building new tunnels is not high on their agenda. And why would it as the benefits would mostly go to New Jersey and beyond.
well, until recently, there wasn't a compelling reason to build more, especially given the cost. but it would have been nice if in the past decade they did. now, we're stuck at capacity, and the ARC tunnel was cancelled based on faulty overrun predictions.
ARC tunnel was largely a crap idea anyway, given that it was a dead-end with no access to the rest of the network, or crucially....the train yards. Giving it limited capacity and use. It was also going to dead end in a location physically quite a long walk from the existing Penn Station facilities.
Gateway is a much better concept, and more useful to all parties.
None of this excuses Christie taking the money away and using it to band-aid the Highway Trust Fund instead of having to actually fix it's inadequate funding. The money should have been held onto and used for Gateway.
ARC tunnel was largely a crap idea anyway, given that it was a dead-end with no access to the rest of the network, or crucially....the train yards. Giving it limited capacity and use. It was also going to dead end in a location physically quite a long walk from the existing Penn Station facilities.
Gateway is a much better concept, and more useful to all parties.
None of this excuses Christie taking the money away and using it to band-aid the Highway Trust Fund instead of having to actually fix it's inadequate funding. The money should have been held onto and used for Gateway.
That new Newark Airport (EWR) PATH station seems like a giant waste of money as well. There is already a stop in place via NJ Transit to connect to the terribly inadquate Airtrain. The new stop will connect to the Journal Square line, but the NJ Transit rail already serves the same damn purpose of getting people to midtown.
To think: Once they build that waste of a station it's STILL going to take like 50-60 minutes to get to midtown!
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