Comments
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8pe4al wrote
The Bergen-Passaic-Hudson LRT goes along a different corridor through the Industrial part of Paterson and surrounding Industrial suburbs along with the city of Hackensack...the road network in those areas is at capacity.. The existing rail service dips south after the Downtown bypassing the area. The NJT 1 Bus is overcapacity despite running every 10mins the LRT line would largely replace that with a grade separated line.
Nuplex t1_j8q7l5z wrote
Wasn't aware of this! Interesting.
However, the distance is just not practical for a light rail system. In America we have a habit of over-extending our systems. Light rail runs at too low a speed to justify the cost of extending all the way there. Really, you'd want an actual heavy rail system, e.g. subway/metro system from Newark to Paterson with good frequency, capacity, and speed.
Tho I guess realistically only light rail gets built. Really it would make more sense to build a separate light rail system up in Paterson and its surrounding area. Could be cheaper than extending all the way from Tonnelle
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8q8six wrote
These routes are on a dedicated right of way, so they can hit the top vehicle speeds which is 55mph. This country tends to build hybrid light rail - commuter rail more in line with the old Inturbans that used to crisscross most of the older suburbs pre-1950s. The Newark-Elizabeth LRT should be a light metro along with the proposed JFK Boulevard BRT. Building a Metro on the other lines would be very expensive as it would have to be fully grade separated and would require a new separate approach to the terminal stations. Where as the current proposal would just be extension of existing lines , replacing a few bus routes. The proposed Hudson-Bergen-Passaic LRT would be an extension of the line Hoboken-Tonnelle Avenue service & the Northern Branch LRT would be an extension of the West Side Ave line. With the proposed Newark-Paterson LRT that would be an extension of Broad Street Shuttle. The density along alot of these corridors is too low to justify a metro but requires more frequent service then an electrified commuter rail with closer station spacing. The existing NJT commuter rail service could then act as an express service.
Nuplex t1_j8qa06o wrote
I think everything you said makes sense!
I'm very much a proponent of dont let perfect be the enemy of good or even okay or even existant in the case of US Public Transit. If anything passable got built I'd be happy.
I just don't think we'll see these lines any time soon. It makes sense but I have very little faith in the state. I mean the extension for the HBLR up to Englewood makes plenty of sense and has tons of pent up demand, and yet not a single shovel has hit the ground in almost 20 years despite seemingly being around the corner.
I do think some extension or some system in Paterson is likely to happen, I just suspect it'll be in 2050 or something.
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8qazcx wrote
A lot of the none movement falls on Murphy not doing as much as he said he would. We missed out on so much federal money for the backlog NJT projects and that falls largely on him. Other states even the Red ones have been more aggressive requesting and receiving funding for projects. I think as redevelopment of Urban Jersey and more so Newark-Elizabeth-The Oranges-Paterson you'll finally start to see the state push the feds to fund more urban rail projects. I'm somewhat hopefully that the proposed JFK Boulevard BRT will be a true BRT and not a watered down painted bus lane route.
Nuplex t1_j8qbd66 wrote
Given track record of BRT in this country.... we'll see. I hope so too.
Re. Murphy. He is generally good (in my opinion) but public transit is his obvious negative. The fact that $11 billion dollar turnpike widening is being championed by him says enough about his awareness of how modern urban planning works. I know the money isn't able to moved from that agency, but there are other road projects to be done other than adding a lane that does nothing but give cars an extra place to park before the Holland bottleneck.
Aggravating_Rise_179 t1_j8tkt0z wrote
Light rail is only called that because of its passenger capacity. It can actually run at speed of heavy rail like the Path and MTA. Just ride the Newark Subway Line after peak hours and you will be on trains that are booking it from downtown to Bloomfield.
If your issues is headways, Newark's subway (the older of the two lines in the light rail system) runs every 3 to 5 minutes within Newark's borders during rush hour and every 10 minutes during the off peak business hours, before transitioning to every 20 minutes until 11pm. This extension would probably just follow that style as this is being proposed to relieve congestion, and having shitty service won't alleviate anything.
down_up__left_right t1_j8p9j7x wrote
>The one inolving the MTA is extremely unlikely to happen for a bureaucratic reasons.
What involves the MTA here?
>NJ Transit Meadowlands line already existing.
That line's current capacity is too low to call another rail line to the meadowlands redundant. There's a reason people end up stuck in the Meadowlands for hours after events like the Superbowl and Wrestlemania. Maybe when it happens in front of a global audience during a World cup final or semifinal the state will be embarrassed enough to fund either fixing the line's capacity or building a light rail extension.
Nuplex t1_j8q6e1o wrote
> What involves the MTA here?
The article explicitly says a proposal to extend the New York City subway into NJ. Edit: I am dunce
Light rail systems are not high capacity, nor would a system going there need to be given there is only a mall there. Building a high capacity system for occasional peak demand would be a hard ask unless it is going between high consistent demand areas already. Increasing train length, size, frequency would make the line there higher capacity than any light rail proposal.
down_up__left_right t1_j8q6o60 wrote
It says Newark City Subway which is the the Grove Street line of the Newark light rail operated by NJ Transit.
Nuplex t1_j8q6zr3 wrote
Oh my bad, I misread Newark as New York. It wasnt out of the realm as originally the 7 was proposed to extend to Secaucus via Hudson Yards so I assumed it was a reference to that.
Ediited my OP.
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8qa2mh wrote
That proposal is all but DOA thanks to the Gateway Project and alignment which would make any attempt of an extension extremely expensive.
Nuplex t1_j8qahte wrote
It's a shame we lack the political will to get these sort of things done :(
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8qb6x5 wrote
I think in this case ,this would be a duplication of an existing service which currently being expanded.
down_up__left_right t1_j8s2l12 wrote
The bigger shame is the cost of projects in NYC means no station in Union City and/or a stop with transfer to the light rail.
If costs in NYC matched anywhere else in the world then for the same price (or less) the Gateway tunnels could be built with one or 2 stops in NJ before the Hudson.
Aggravating_Rise_179 t1_j8tm0wy wrote
Plus, NY politicians took join in saying NJ residents would never have a 2.75 train ride into NYC... completely forgetting the path.
objectimpermanence t1_j8pmiwy wrote
Why exactly would the Meadowlands line have such low capacity? It’s not like it’s a single-track line.
Isn’t the problem mainly the fact that NJ Transit has decided they don’t want to run more trains during major events due to operational/budgetary issues? Or is there some sort of limitation in the line’s design that justifies building another rail line out there?
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8q9wtf wrote
It's a Branch track , so what goes in has to come out before another train can enter... All terminals have this issue which you can see at Hoboken on the PATH or LRT during rush hour. The original proposal during the 90s would have created a loop track, but that would have torn up more of the wetlands. There would have been electrification as well and high capacity trains piggybacking off an MTA Metro North order, but that plan was scrapped and along with most of the 90s/early 2000s plan for the state which would have addressed most of the issues that come up today whether it's crowd issues at events in the Meadowlands or Newark or NY or daily commuter frustrations or the congested strained corridors.
pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j8p8q9z wrote
This is a form of advertising for them. That’s all this is. Draw a few maps. Make a few renderings and get a bunch of links to your website and your name in the press so you can tell potential clients your work has been seen on ____.
Might have even paid for the article. Lots of “native advertising” these days masquerading as legitimate content.
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8pg9wc wrote
All of these proposals have gone through extensive studies with the last one wrapping up last year and find there is enough demand to justify them.
Aggravating_Rise_179 t1_j8tkf8z wrote
Yet Path, when it has the pre-pandemic ridership, is literally bursting at the seams and the cities on the line continue to build. It needs relief. Redundancy is not a bad thing if it has a purpose to exist.
Nuplex t1_j8ttkas wrote
That's because PATH refuses to run operationally effecient.
There are so many operational improvements PATH could make to have reduced pre-pandemic crowding that they just didn't. (I will give credit that they did actually commit to longer trains and improving signaling)
And of course new lines or stations should be being proposed by PATH to adjust to the growing urban environment instead we have to constantly beg them to stop the brain-dead weekend 33rd St Via Hoboken nonsense, something they are able to do right now and just don't want to.
Also, I don't think Redundancy is bad rather from a state planning perspective that is the primary reason they would not extend HBLR to Newark. Especially when, as said, PATH can do many things to improve capacity any time. I guess when we all give up on PATH to be competent we'll have to build these other systems to supplement their poor management.
Aggravating_Rise_179 t1_j8v4u7g wrote
I mean sure, but the Path literally bypasses one of NJ's most densely populated neighborhoods in the Ironbound, and any light rail connection with HBLR would help alleviate traffic in a part of town that is super congested. The path is great, but it doesnt provide any services to a part of Newark that really needs it
Nuplex t1_j8xar70 wrote
I'm not against it I'm just saying what the state would say when they explain why they won't fund it.
More transit is always something I personally want haha
Juicey_J_Hammerman t1_j8u5tu9 wrote
The article is a bit clickbaity, but all of the proposals actually do seem relatively feasible since the right of ways still exist for the majority of the distance.
When you stop and consider that Newark, JC and Paterson are each county seats and the 3 largest cities in New Jersey, all with government and corporate offices, hospitals, universities, and attractions in each to draw travelers, I think it does make sense to connect all of them via light rail even despite the redundancy in areas because of the additional transfer/network possibilities it creates (it would provide an opportunity to transfer between the Main Line, Bergen County Line, and Pascack Valley Line as well as the Northern Branch HBLR extension before the junction station in Secaucus) - this would basically be NJ's rough equivalent to NYC's proposed Interborough Express subway line between the Bronx and Staten Island, which is good considering how much of our trains are so focused on shuttling people to and from NYC.
And given the population density of this part of the state, I think there would be the ridership to justify it, especially since some of these rights of way also go either directly through downtowns or main streets of towns like Nutley, Belleville or Maywood, as well as right by major offices and institutions like the On3 Campus (home to corporate labs and Seton Hall's Medical School), Hackensack University Medical Center, the Kearny Point office complex, Paterson Great Falls NHP, and others these projects would have a good amount of high profile destinations at various points along each line, and likely entice developers to build more higher density housing and mixed use properties near the stations.
Brudesandwich t1_j8p65zb wrote
Do it!!!! For the love of God DO IT!!!!! 😭
Blecher_onthe_Hudson t1_j8pahiy wrote
Yeah, right. Going to build 2 drawbridges over the Hack and Passaic to get the HBLR extension to Kearny & Newark? Not a fucking chance. Like the Hudson Pedestrian Bridge and Tunnel, this is what you get when someone with no common sense or knowledge of how big civil engineering projects work looks at a map and starts daydreaming.
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8r1i3a wrote
You might be able to get away with just a tall elevated Bridge for the Passaic River , the Hackensack would require a moveable bridge. Probably cost a few billion but still cheaper than widening the Turnpike or 1/9... The NJT line 1 bus is at capacity and this proposal would replace it and reduce the commute time seeing how the alignment would be grade separated..and with all the up zoning underway in Newark and rezoning / up zoning in Kearny and JC what option do we have?
everylittlebitcounts t1_j8poprg wrote
So in both of these proposals, the highlighted blue section (not the blue line but the blue highlight) is Norfolk Southern owned tracks that still serves active customers. And there is no way they would allow freight shifting on a light rail track, not to mention it wouldn’t even fit under the catenary. Good luck getting them to give up their active line.
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8r1srs wrote
One train per week, and it could operate like the RiverLINE with freight limited to overnight hours... NS seems ok with NJT using its tracks for Light Rail or regional rail so long as they get some payment out of it or infrastructure upgrades. They don't operate double stack trains like on their main lines, so they would fight under the Catenary without issues. They are not ok with the state forcing them abandoned lines...hence they high purchase costs for the boonton Branch.
everylittlebitcounts t1_j8r6a0b wrote
Freight and light rail physically cannot share the same tracks by definition. The catenary height of the hblr and the nec are different. But yea exactly the common carrier laws are pretty strong to prevent forced abandonment or any kind of eminent domain by the state
Nexis4Jersey t1_j8so1hq wrote
They can with special permission from the FRA. NJT does it with the RiverLINE in South Jersey, and it will be done with the Northern Branch. A small section of the Newark Light Rail had freight on it until 2007. The NS Newark Branch sees very little traffic, so I doubt NJT will have any issues using the line. The height of the Catenary can be adjusted for freight clearance its not a fixed height. SEPTA has a section of streetcar that crosses the CSX main line and catenary is higher to meet the clearence of the double stack.
down_up__left_right t1_j8so8r3 wrote
>Freight and light rail physically cannot share the same tracks by definition.
Doesn't the River line light rail share tracks with freight?
Although go into the posts about the IBX on r/r/nycrail if you want to see all the arguments about what the definition of light rail is. It's not a scientific term so it doesn't actually have a specific definition in that regard and legally the definition is just that the train cars look like trams:
thedukeoferla t1_j8q8axj wrote
Right after we get that pedestrian bridge linking Exchange Place to Battery Park :-)
Nuplex t1_j8p344d wrote
Kind of a strange article.
The urban planner didn't necessarily come up with these, it's a combination of pre-existing proposals.
Also, they are basically a private individual, unfortunately have no impact on these getting built.
The one inolving the MTA is extremely unlikely to happen for a bureaucratic reasons.Edit: misread Newark as New York, classicRight now the only extensions budgeted/officially planned in our region are:
These will probably be finished within 15 years.
After that, the Paterson extension is the most "likely", as well as a proposal floating around to have a light rail between American Dream and Secaucus, possibly extending to the HBLR somewhere. Issues with these is redundancy. NJ Transit to Paterson and NJ Transit Meadowlands line already existing. Redundancy is the same reason a HBLR extension from JC to Newark, even though the old right of way exists, is unlikely. It mirrors PATH too much.