Comments
ShartistKutti t1_itzjzwt wrote
They're literally limiting service to save money, so that they can get more riders with less overhead. It took 18 minutes to get from NWK to JSQ this morning. For what reason? We got to JSQ and the entire platform was crowded, and this was at the point when service to 33rd had already been restored-- the train to 33rd was full, and not a soul was waiting for 33rd. Just to cram more riders into a single train. Absolute Shit. Not to mention I had taken the NJT from trenton to Newark, and still had some trips on my smartlink-- in hindsight I should have taken it straight to Penn, but still. What the fuck?
Vince_BK t1_iu14brn wrote
Limiting service to save money is the funniest excuse I've heard.
ShartistKutti t1_iu14m9x wrote
It’s the Path, do you expect anything more? General service has faltered over the past 5-6 years
Vince_BK t1_iu152tn wrote
Since you have so much knowledge on how to run a railroad, maybe you should get a job there.
ABrusca1105 t1_iu1fr96 wrote
NJT must have the same source of wisdom. Every train I get on (I don't commute) is PACKED. Weekends more than recovered already. A couple of weeks ago Penn Station New Jersey Transit concourse looked like a can of sardines at midnight. About a week ago on a Thursday night at 12:30 a.m. coming home from the airport. It also was busier than I expected. Frequencies need to be increased drastically on the weekends.
throw495887 t1_iu1s5pz wrote
They are never gonna have the money or political will to meaningfully expand. I think the strategy is to starve it and hope people drive.
Remember there is a giant conflict of interest in all of this, PA runs PATH trains at a huge financial loss, but collects hudson river toll revenue to great gain
ABrusca1105 t1_iu1sq12 wrote
If trains can run every 7-15 min in rush hour, they can run more than once per hour on weekends.
Also, Gateway is going to be built, it HAS TO. That will increase Hudson capacity by double. The project comes with additional rolling stock to enable that extra service already budgeted. One of the only reasons New Jersey Transit has not been able to expand the number of lines is because there just simply isn't enough capacity to fit more trains into Penn per day. The Monmouth Ocean Middlesex line is a perfect example of that.
The true solution is to unify all of the railroads going into Manhattan into a single railroad. That would include both the commuter railroads as well as the rapid transit railroads. Create a new agency under a revamped Port Authority.
throw495887 t1_iu1x8tb wrote
Where will the money come from? NY and NJ are not on a level playing field. Whats in it for NY to pitch in money for these things? Look at Penn Station. NY is spending millions for improvements to Amtrak and LIRR and not a cent for NJ Transit. Or congestion charging, they are about to collect tons of revenue from NJ commuters but not giving a cent to NJ. And what reward does NJ get for investing in cross-hudson transit infrastructure? More commuters living in NJ but giving 100% of their income taxes to NY. It's a big scam.
Remember the Port Authority runs plenty of profitable infrastructure, specifically bridges, airports and ports. Force them to pick up more unprofitable rail service and their business model no longer works. The only reason they run PATH in the first place was as a concession for them to build the World Trade Center.
ABrusca1105 t1_iu1xtw9 wrote
The money is half federal, 1/4 New York, and 1/4 New Jersey. If the North River Tunnels fail, New York's economy goes into a literal depression as does the entirety of the Northeast. The whole country will also enter a recession. Bringing more people into the city also helps the economy. The Penn Station remodeling is being done with a payment in lieu of taxes for the redevelopment surrounding it. New Jersey benefits from new tunnels because their residents can commute to work and other trips quicker and more frequently.
Public transportation is not a for-profit endeavor. The funding is there, especially after the federal infrastructure bill passed. I wish the second bill passed with more real funding, but there is plenty of funding for Amtrak, who owns the North River Tunnels.
Ticket prices into New York City are already very high. How are you? Even saying that they are unprofitable? The Northeast regional and the North Jersey coastline I can guarantee you If we saw the numbers would be profitable. How about we put tolls in every single limited access highway in the entire country and pay for all of the infrastructure that way. We have to be profitable right? How about the airports that they have to rebuild every 20 years?
If you support defunding the Gateway program, You support children dying in the street of hunger in New York.
intellos t1_iu2zs5u wrote
For real, where the fuck do these people think millions of extra cars are going to fit in NYC?
intellos t1_iu2zj86 wrote
Driving will never replace these trains. There is not and will never be enough physical space inside the city for enough cars to replace the millions of daily trips the trains provide. Not that it stops stupid fucking NYT writers from advocating for it.
LimpCondiment t1_itzl1qf wrote
Bruh, they went from every 4-5 minutes to every 5 minutes. How is this even worth complaining about?
vatsy08 t1_itzsdwt wrote
Lol. From 4 mins to 5 mins during peak hours is 20% reduction in frequency.
LimpCondiment t1_itzstrh wrote
Idk man I really haven’t noticed the difference. I leave on the PATH everyday and it’s not that bad. Today was busy yes, but I’m not gonna chalk it to a minute change only because it’s almost always not that busy for me and I get on at 8:30/8:40.
Artichoke_25 t1_itzlwdu wrote
Do you see that picture? This is worth complaining about
objectimpermanence t1_itzua2w wrote
That’s up to a 20 % reduction in service.
Going from 15 trains per hour to 12 trains per hour reduces capacity by close to 5,000 passengers per hour.
hayflicklimit t1_itzkchr wrote
We need to organize against this.
They maintain like 15 miles of track. Why is it so difficult to keep things running smoothly? The PATH is ever the pauper with its hat out asking for more money. It’s time to demand return on that.
Post these photos to Twitter and Instagram tag elected officials.
Directly message our congressional reps to demand something changes.
Albio Sires, Cory Booker, Bob Menendez, Donald Payne, Bill Pascrell. Light em up until they at least feint action.
https://www.hudsoncountyclerk.org/elected-officials/#ElectedOfficials
BlueBeagle8 t1_itzm2re wrote
I'm never against complaining to our Reps, but Congress has nothing to do with managing the Port Authority. That's all Murphy, Hochul, and their appointees.
hayflicklimit t1_itznnsr wrote
And they’re doing fuckall.
The senators and reps are way more likely to bump into Murphy and Hochul than we are as individuals. If we make it clear that action on this may determine whether or not they get to keep their jobs, they’ll take action.
BlueBeagle8 t1_itzoinm wrote
Call me cynical, but I don't think that tweeting at Albio Sires to make him talk about the PATH if he ever bumps into Murphy is a very effective theory of change.
Especially with control of Congress likely about to flip to Republicans, the amount of leverage that the feds have over the governors is negligible (even if you assume that you could convince them to use it on improving municipal transportation.)
I would strongly recommend directing our complaints to people who might actually be able to do something about them.
hayflicklimit t1_itzsjn9 wrote
Ok. You’re cynical.
vocabularylessons t1_iu056hq wrote
They’re being realistic. If you want to affect change then use your valuable time lobbying the right people. Calling a U.S. Senator won’t do anything, they have nothing to do with PATH or Port Authority. The people who have influence are the state governors and their board appointees. Port Authority is entirely self funding so you can’t take the public funding angle either.
moobycow t1_itzx0k7 wrote
The essential problem we face is that if we kick out the elected because of this, we get Republicans and they are sure as fuck not going to make mass transit better.
DPedia t1_iu0haew wrote
Especially if Jersey City—and Journal Square specifically—want to keep building skyscrapers and filling them with new residents. This will keep getting worse far faster than any of the minuscule "enhancements."
Remember when "Positive Train Control" or whatever it was took like 5 years to implement? Having been a PATH commuter for like 15 years now (before Sandy, after Sandy, before COVID, after COVID), I can't say it's been noticeably better.
Sonatarhia t1_iu1d7we wrote
Having been a PATH commuter for 20+ years, I can positively, and unequivocally, say that service has deteriorated over the last 20 years.
NO DOUBT.
Artichoke_25 t1_itzmcam wrote
15 miles of track!! Seriously. “Keeping the region moving” indeed.
Positive_Debate7048 t1_itzpo6a wrote
It’s in part because the PATH has to operate per the extremely stringent FRA freight rail standards instead of the more lenient FTA rapid transit standards due to sharing ROW with freight near Newark. I read somewhere that the PATH system costs more to maintain than the entire NYC subway.
This is also the reason why the PATH will never be expanded because any new tunnels will need to be built to current freight railroad standards.
objectimpermanence t1_iu0dw4u wrote
PATH’s budget is smaller than the NYC subway’s.
But their operating costs per passenger mile are higher than the NYC subway, as well as most other subway systems in the world.
> This is also the reason why the PATH will never be expanded because any new tunnels will need to be built to current freight railroad standards.
I don’t think that’s the main reason. My understanding is that the burden of PATH being regulated as a federal railroad mainly comes in the form of operational inefficiencies. Though the Feds did require PATH to upgrade its signal system sooner than they would have otherwise.
Due to corruption and a lack of accountability, building tunnels in the NYC metro area is extremely expensive no matter what kind of tunnel it is. It’s significantly more expensive than it is even in cities like London and Paris.
Our capacity to build major new infrastructure projects will be limited until we somehow get a handle on these absolutely insane construction costs.
DPedia t1_iu0hlul wrote
And let's not forget when PATH was blasted for a shitload of workers sleeping on their overtime shifts. That costs some money too.
Positive_Debate7048 t1_iu0n6fo wrote
I think the other main reason is that NY will never sign on to fund a PATH expansion in NJ.
Also you are kind of brushing over the PTC requirement. PTC because of the way it works means that PATH trains have to operate at slower speeds compared to rapid transit systems. I’m not going to go too much into it, but it’s been criticized as being safety overkill and makes running trains smoothly way more difficult for minimal safety increases compared to forms of ATC or CBTC
vocabularylessons t1_iu18hk0 wrote
Neither NJ or NY contributes funding to PATH. Port Authority self finances its operations, including PATH.
Positive_Debate7048 t1_iu1ekv8 wrote
Yes but you still need approval from both states for capital projects iirc
vocabularylessons t1_iu1m5z5 wrote
From the Board of Commissioners, not directly the states themselves
Positive_Debate7048 t1_iu22ayl wrote
They pretty much are there to represent the interests of either state and take orders from their governors
passmle t1_itzdyaw wrote
Omg thanks for this
gshirodkar t1_itzhfzb wrote
Weirdly enough, the train from exchange place to wtc was less crowded than usual this morning.
doglywolf t1_itzqi9p wrote
This is getting more and more common again. Right before covid it was almost at a breaking point then covid hit and all the Work from home stuff really took the pressure off , but its building up again. More and more and more people in JC and Path system at capacity .
Honestly think . PA wants this to happen to complain and ask for more money. Demand has grown yet they REDUCED the amount of trains on this line.
Tankmaster5000 t1_iu08cjh wrote
I said this awhile ago about all the new high rise buildings and influx of new people may cause the PATH to get packed, and everyone said “no, people work from home now.”
Well, turns out that’s not the case.
JeromePowellAdmirer t1_iu0bact wrote
Ridership is absolutely still lower than pre pandemic. Whether that translates to less crowding depends on how many trains they run. Not offices fault that they cut service.
Tankmaster5000 t1_iu0eqdp wrote
K
jersey385 t1_itzk5t5 wrote
This situation resolved in about 15 minutes. I was there the entire time. And the WTC trains were coming regularly.
hayflicklimit t1_itznrsb wrote
This situation is all too frequent.
el_tigrox t1_itzokbr wrote
This will come off rude, but it’s not intended that way - are you relatively new to riding PATH? It’s FAR better than it was, but definitely has moments like this. 2016-2019 was a major period of bad situations and small improvements. The signal updates sped trains up substantially, so we have less situations like this overall - but they happen.
But, appeals to elected officials will do very little since Port Authority is a multi state mess.
On Election Day, we’re getting the opportunity to put one of the port authority’s executives into power - Menendez Jr is directly responsible for a lot of these issues, and now he’s being rewarded for it.
doglywolf t1_itzqze2 wrote
The ONLY reason it got better since 2016 is Covid. IT was nearly at a breaking point , then covid hit no more demand, coming out of covid 20% of the workforce is still WFH - huge relief on the transit system . However endless growth and buildings DTJC are putting it right back to where it was along with more and more companies going back to office. .
They used the signal issue to say they couldn't handle more trains in the system . Now they got the new signal system but they have not put more trains in still the same time gap / amount of trains - actually 2 less an hour then at former pre covid peak IIRC . I think with the new system they can at 4 more trains per hour (6 more total then currently ). They lost a ton of money during covid so they are trying to make it up with reduced service now
Beautiful-Living-671 t1_itzsq37 wrote
It's actually closer to 40% fewer riders than pre-Covid, at least according to PATH stats posted for August. I doubt it's over 70% pre-pandemic numbers even now.
doglywolf t1_itzvg14 wrote
maybe its an economy thing or something then all the jobs reports i see put WFH at 20-30% . Or maybe that many people and businesses moved out of NYC
el_tigrox t1_itzt2zl wrote
No doubt. They caught a break. I'll hate on PATH all day long, but I'm going to wait a bit to see this 10 car improvement they have coming online by the end of the year. That may just be enough to make things a BIT easier in places like Grove Street.
hayflicklimit t1_itztzg8 wrote
No, I’m not. And “it’s been worse” isn’t a great defense here, especially with all of the investment and develop of this area projected in the next 5 years. It’s on track to be far worse than before.
el_tigrox t1_itzuksd wrote
You're not wrong. There's plenty of blame to go around - but the cities should have fought harder to ensure developers paid into a transportation improvement fund. They didn't want to hurt development, so it's never been a thing... but development is the #1 cause of this problem. And I think Jersey City in the next few years will be less to blame than what's happening in Harrison. Have you seen that place lately? Whoh boy... once all that land is developed near the station in the next few years, the trains will ARRIVE full into Journal Square.
hayflicklimit t1_itzv31h wrote
So we’re just supposed to sit on our hands and swallow this shitty service?
el_tigrox t1_itzvuw9 wrote
There are avenues for recourse, but you have to actually do them:
Have you attended any of the public hearings, board meetings, or contacted anyone on at the Port Authority to discuss your concerns? If you have, that's the process.
Have you contacted the Governor's office or the transportation secretary? https://www.state.nj.us/transportation/about/commissioner/
If you haven't - complaining on Reddit or Twitter is the equivalent of sitting on your hands.
hayflicklimit t1_itzwodd wrote
I’m not suggesting about simply complaint on social media. I’m suggesting we use it as a tool to organize. I can call all these offices everyday, but I’m just one person. Collective action is the only way to see this change.
el_tigrox t1_itzxqvo wrote
You're absolutely right. I genuinely don't know what the answer is... financial boycott or protest. We're all stuck in this system because we can't get across the fucking river with alternate systems - you can't get to the ferry without the damn PATH, and the tunnels are also controlled by PATH, so you're financially rewarding them by seeking alternatives. It feels helpless at times, absolutely.
Our Mayor used to be much more active and angry with the PATH, but he has been pretty quiet and cozying up to the state powers that be lately.
hayflicklimit t1_itzutfa wrote
Additionally, Robert Menedez being up for an election is an excellent reason to take my stated course of action.
jersey385 t1_itzvfwc wrote
I agree with that. Today however there was decent communication (at least there was at Grove St), and the resolution was relatively swift. This does happen too often though, it’s not always resolved quickly and it always seems to be at the height of rush hour 7:50-9:00 am.
thedukeoferla t1_itzsf0d wrote
Remember when there was no cell service in the PATH station? What would all these poor souls be doing to fill their time
A_Downboat_Is_A_Sub t1_iu023qh wrote
I can remember back when PATH was a dollar, PATHvision was useless, and a newspaper, magazine, or book was the primary source of entertainment.
If train service was delayed, or not running, which was more often than currently, you would usually find out only because the platform was packed, or in non peak times, because the train never came. Announcements often sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, and people would literally shush each other when they came on, in an attempt to hear them.
bobosquishy t1_iu06ql7 wrote
I don’t know which ring of hell is hotter — PATH or NJ Transit trains….
DPedia t1_iu0hwl9 wrote
PATH. Because it's so goddamn small. It's like a joke of a train system and yet we can't keep it running correctly for a single day.
flyingcrayons t1_itzjl7y wrote
Newport had track issues too had to bike over to exchange place to get to the office
[deleted] t1_itzgk1o wrote
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photographerdan t1_iu05k66 wrote
FWIW None of this seems to be problem before 8:30 even if there are delays.
I can board the 33rd bound with no issues and there isnt any crowding during this time or earlier.
Just something id share incase those are wondering if they can avoid all of this by heading in just a bit earlier.
dudley_do_right t1_itzplh3 wrote
When going in, I’ve found success hiring the path early or late. Never at my usual time. Fortunate enough to work for a company that allows me to work from home/office with a flexible achedule
[deleted] t1_itzunbi wrote
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cameronium t1_iu04nwa wrote
I’m always so grateful I travel dumb early for work when I see these posts.
ArchiGay22 t1_iu0ng7d wrote
The tracks around newport were in need of emergency repairs and shut down all lines going to 33rd
Opening-Rain-7659 t1_iu0oymj wrote
After living thru Covid for 2 plus years this is disgusting
Azor_ash_hi t1_iu0wfdp wrote
Are the JSQ-WTC trains still backed up?
70green t1_iu1apkp wrote
No longer will I need to deal with this. I'm moving to Colorado
PcPillis t1_iu29lzb wrote
Move to Jersey City they say..
objectimpermanence t1_itzfouc wrote
Thankfully, in its infinite wisdom, PATH has indefinitely reduced service frequency on the NWK-WTC line during rush hours.
So now whenever there are delays on the 33rd line, the WTC line is less effective as an alternative due to crowding.