Results tagged “njtransit”

Insanity! Yesterday, Governor Paterson's office announced that "months of intensive negotiations have resulted in a general agreement and mutual understanding on the basic terms and conditions that will lead to the redevelopment of New York City’s historic Farley Post Office Building into a new intercity passenger train station and center for most of Amtrak’s New York City service." The NY Times says, "The deal, whose specifics have yet to be finalized or released, would clear one of the biggest hurdles facing Moynihan Station, which was first proposed more than 15 years ago and has struggled ever since." Last year, after various plans for revamping the gorgeous Farley building into the station had been presented, Madison Square Garden pulled out of the project to simply renovate its own building, leaving many to think the project was dead. Though NJ Transit has already agreed to use space in Moynihan Station, now Amtrak is apparently committed, with the government agreeing to give a bigger share of retail revenue. Guess Paterson really wants to be the the sheriff of Moynihan Station.

       

Yesterday, NJ Governor Jon Corzine and other federal and NJ state officials broke ground on the $8.7 billion trans-Hudson Mass Transit Tunnel project. The work will double the capacity of NJ Transit. Corzine said, "We are making a contribution to the future that I think is untold. A hundred years from now, the nation and its Northeast corridor will be a better place because of the decisions and the actions we're taking today."

NJ Transit commuters have been dealing with the brunt of delays after some wires "came down near Metropark in Iselin Monday night," the AP reports. First, NJ Transit trains were delayed by an hour in both directions on the popular Northeast Corridor route (some trains were even canceled), but now the delays are about 15-30 minutes because three of four tracks are now open. Amtrak customers were facing delays of about 20 minutes. It's unclear what caused the wires to be damaged, but we're betting some of those trains were getting a little tense with St. Patrick's Day revelers.

Two NJ Transit commuter buses collided in the Lincoln Tunnel this morning. Both were Manhattan-bound buses--the 113 from Dunellan and the 160 from Hackensack. WABC 7 reports they were "closer to the New York State side, shortly after 9 a.m. this morning," when the 113 was rear-ended by the 160. Thirty-three people were injured, but their injuries are not considered life-threatening. The south inbound tube was closed and traffic was diverted to the center tube, according to WCBS 2.

Governor Paterson has reignited plans on the construction of Moynihan Station, the long-delayed new home of Penn Station in the post office across the street from the current one. Paterson really threw his hat into the ring attempting to stir up excitement and confidence for the new chapter in the saga of the station saying, "We're going to respond to this challenge - and do you know why we're going to respond? There's a new sheriff in town."

The MTA is planning extra service for July 4th--and today! There are more trains from Penn Station on the LIRR and from Grand Central on the Metro-North today--"getaway service." NJ Transit also has additional train service departing NY Penn Station, Newark Penn Station, and Hoboken terminal. Tomorrow, most service will be operating on a weekend/Sunday schedule.

The Regional Planning Association released a map of what service and capital improvements tri-state riders can expect, even in the absence of approval for a congestion pricing plan. NYC Transit riders have a lot to be unhappy about following a fare hike, followed by the announcement that promised service improvements were off the table, followed by the prospect of yet another fare hike and even more service cuts. If Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan doesn't pass, it's uncertain how the MTA will be able to afford major capital improvements to the system, although a $1.5 billion windfall from the sale of the Hudson Yards should help.

Yesterday's windy weather has at least one casualty: According to WNBC, power lines in NJ. Jersey Central Power & Light's commercial power lines "fell across the tracks in Montville," prompting the Montclair-Boonton line to be closed for a while. The line is open again, but this means one-hour delays for the Northeast Corridor, NJ Coast and Raritan Valley lines. NJ Transit and Lakeland buses are honoring rail tickets.

After the stunning Giants' Super Bowl win, people cheered like they hadn't seen a Super Bowl victory in 17 years! Throughout the city, folks were stumbling onto streets, chanting the names of players and even getting arrested.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced New York City will receive $153 million - up from last year's $61 million - in transit security grants. Wow - all we can do is remember Chertoff's 2005 remark, when trying discussing how security funding would be allocated, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first."

Hundreds of thousands of commuters can breathe a sigh of relief today as a threatened strike by Amtrak workers has been avoided. A strike would have shut down Penn Station, diverting travelers on the Long Island Rail Road, Amtrak lines, and New Jersey Transit to subways and the PATH system. The city was already preparing contingency plans to have LIRR riders disembark in Brooklyn, and Jamaica Station and Woodside in Queens to take the subway. NJ Transit riders would be shunted to Hoboken, where they could board PATH trains to Manhattan. The chairman of a LIRR commuters group said "It is going to be worse than a nightmare - it will be a complete horror show."

Eight separate unions representing Amtrak workers are threatening to go on strike as early as January 30th if they are not presented with new contracts, which they've worked without for years. A strike would hurt more than people taking the Acela between Washington D.C. and Boston. If Amtrak workers strike, it would close Penn Station and hundreds off thousands of daily commuters on the Long Island Rail Road, NJ Transit, and Amtrak would be seriously inconvenienced.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, a double shooting at West 151st St. and Walton Ave. in the Bronx, and a pursuit/crash/bailout on 95th St. and the West Side Highway in Manhattan.
• The disbarred lawyer accused of murdering his wife and blaming it on a random carjacking admitted to cops that he'd sent flowers to his girlfriend that day and had various small affairs and used escorts outside of his marriage.
• The girlfriend who turned in her boyfriend with his huge cache of weapons this week used to work for "The King of All Pimps" Jason Itzler out of his brothel. She was upset with Suwei Chuang because she wanted to get married and he wasn't sure.

In what seems to be separate incidents, NJ Transit and PATH commuters are facing a rough Thursday morning commute into the city.

The low-slung Port Authority bus terminal will be getting a heady addition: The Port Authority will announce a deal for a tower to be built at its north end. The NY Times reports that Lawrence Ruben Company and Vornado Realty Trust is buying air rights for $400-500 million, which the Port Authority will then be used to add 18 bus platforms, give the terminal a "major face-lift" and overall refurbishing. Well, finally - commuting to...

Yesterday afternoon, downed wires in a train tunnel caused hours of delays for trains in the Northeast Corridor yesterday. The downed wires stopped a passenger train from entering the tunnels, and then the domino effect: Amtrak trains from Boston were backed up on their way to NYC, while trains from Philadelphia to NYC only made it to Newark. The outage occurred around 8:30AM and service was restored around 2:30PM, after affecting at least 50,000 riders...

The Port Authority is investigating adding a second bus lane to the Lincoln Tunnel. There's a bus lane already (carved out of a westbound lane between 6:15-10AM), which carries 51% of all passengers who use the tunnel, but the Post calls it a "victim of its own success," since it's operating at capacity. The second bus lane would be for buses - and perhaps for drivers who would pay a premium toll (over the current $6).

Yikes! A NJ Transit bus that just left the city via the Lincoln Tunnel crashed into a divider on I-495, near the Park Avenue exit in Weehawken. One of the commuters told WABC 7,"All of a sudden we were just on top of the divider. Nobody seems to know what happened. Everybody was jolted forward ... a lot of people sustained injuries to their face ... my friend got cut, she needed stitches ... a girl in front of us hit her face and a woman that was standing fell to the floor."

On May 25, 2006, there was a power outage along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line, a heavily traveled route that stranded over a hundred trains from Amtrak, NJ Transit and other transit companies. Now, nine months later, Amtrak has revealed what went wrong - and it's a doozy. The NY Times reports:

A 4-year-old computer in Philadelphia failed to execute a single command given 36 hours earlier, after maintenance had been done on the evening of May 23, and then failed to alert human controllers that it had not followed instructions, according to an extensive investigation performed by outside experts. The effect was to limit the amount of power available in the system, leaving no margin during periods of peak demand.

Continue reading "2006 Amtrak Outage Blamed On 4-Year-Old Computer"

After Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver blocked Governor Pataki's Moynihan Station plans last October, we wondered how Governor Spitzer would take up the task and spar with Silver. To refresh your memory, Spitzer's problem with Pataki's Moynihan Station plans was that they were incomplete, given that developers had more extensive ideas about a Farley Post Office and Madison Square Garden revitalization (known as "plan B"); Pataki, on the other hand, wanted to get the plan A moving to take advantage of federal funds.

"smart" that commuters could use for NJ Transit buses, PATH train, and maybe even city subways. And a dream plan would also include the AirTrain and ferries! According to the News, the Port Authority has asked financial institutions to "put together a system that essentially would feature some version of debit or credit cards that function like MetroCards - and that could also open PATH train turnstiles and be used to pay for trips on some New Jersey Transit buses and possibly even for commuter train rides on both sides of the Hudson River." Which would be a great - if hardly groundbreaking - idea.

If you drive into the city from Queens or Long Island, it might be worth your while to stop by Shea Stadium today between 10AM and 2PM. Why? Because the NYC Department of Transportation is trying to relieve holiday gridlock by giving 350 $4 Metrocards to commuters who park at Shea and will use mass transit today, next Wednesday (December 27) and January 3. This is supposed to be part of the DOT's holiday traffic mitigation plan, but the one flaw we see is that commuters would probably be at their Midtown work while the Metrocards are being given away. And why not offer some promotion with other mass transit systems, like the LIRR or NJ Transit? But who is anyone to complain, as the cards were donated by the International Gemological Institute.

The federal government has approved $2.6 billion in funding for the East Side Access project. The project would link the LIRR and Grand Central, in an effort to relieve congestion at Penn Station as well as cross-town congestion. NY1 reports that the "deal is being called the single largest transit investment in American history." Governor Pataki and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters signed the "Full Funding Grant Agreement" at Grand Central. Pataki said, "This project – underway right now – it is going to open up Grand Central and the east side to tens of thousands of commuters from Long Island, commuters who currently take the train into Penn Station and then have to get back to the Grand Central area."

A man was shocked after touching high voltage wires over a NJ Transit train parked inside Penn Station. The man had tried opening the train's doors, but when he couldn't, he climbed on top of the train. Authorities suspect the man may be homeless and was trying to get into the train to sleep. An Amtrak employee found the man, who was taken to New York-Weill Cornell Hospital for third-degree burns.

We wish you a happy Thanksgiving, however you may spend the day, whether it's on a cold, wet corner waiting to see the parade balloon and floats, traveling to your family's for a big meal, or staying in and watching football. It's our favorite holiday because it's about gathering - without any worry about gifts (maybe some worry about the sweet potatoes, though). Remember to give thanks - we're all very lucky. Here are Thanksgiving editorials from the Daily News, Post, NY Times, NY Sun and Newsday, which reminds us that on a day when food is bountiful, we should remember to give to food banks.

Yesterday afternoon, a 51 year old Bronx woman was fatally hit by a city bus. Rachel Levy had been crossing a road near the Henry Hudson Parkway around West 236th Street. The bus driver didn't realize someone was hit and didn't stop; the driver was not charged.

- A NJ Transit light rail train hits a NJ Transit bus - luckily none of the accidents are life threatening, but come on, they are both operated by NJ Transit!

After Jennifer Moore's death after partying at West 27th Street club, Guest House, last week, the local papers decide to head down to West 27th between 10th and 11th Avenues to report on the scene there. So there are mentions of drunken girls using tire to rest their heads as they lay on the street (NY Times) or girls super-excited that photographers are taking their pictures outside a club like paparazzi (NY Post). Here's a sampling:

Well, Gateway National Recreation Area is right in our neck of the woods, extending in three New York City boroughs and into northern New Jersey. It is a good place to start your quest for the perfect patch of sand and cooling waters.