NJ Transit ridership is up after declines

Interesting article on ridership levels in the Star Ledger.

There is a grid that has very interesting statistics in it. It is not available on the Star Ledger site so here is:

http://www.cabfinancial.com/ridership.jpg

This is the article text that goes with the chart:

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/
base/news-6/1086850456281450.xml

Wow, thats good to see the numbers increasing, but I am surprised that the Coast Line declined so much!!!

It was a rough year last year on the coast line, especially with the relatively frequent drawbridge problems, and when the wires were pulled down at River. I think that people were getting fed up with the slower trains and more frequent stops on teh Coast Line and more chances for a stuck drawbridge, adn decided to drive to Metropark with the much better and frequent NEC express service.

Wow, 20 million NEC passengers....sheesh!!!

Wow, 20 million NEC passengers....sheesh!!!

That's 20 million in 9 months. It extrapolates to 26 million for the full fiscal year ending 6/30/04.

It's kind of scary from a planning/budgeting standpoint that just a relatively small percent increase in ridership on the NEC (2.1%) and the M&E (5.28%) alone adds up to nearly 1 million trips. I'd guess that a good chunk of this is peak hour trips.

If this modest trend continues for a couple of years, is there any way capacity can increase enough to keep pace? Rolling stock, personnel, infrastructure, ferries, etc.

Wow, thats right, I didn't notice that at first, that those numbers were only for 9 months....wow

If this isn't good enough evidence for a new tunnel to be start soon into NYP, I don't know what is. These past couple of years of decreasing ridership is only a blip on the radar of NJT ridership over the past 20. Imagine what its going to be like in another 20....or 35 when I retire......

Unless people magically start to get smaller and they can do 5 by 4 seating, something drastic has to be done soon, i.e. starting on that new tunnel!!!!

Another wierd stat that I just calculated......figuring 46.5 million trips and there are 1100 trainmen.....that means that I (me, one trainman) would on average service 42,272 passegners over the course of 9 months, and 56,362 for the year. (42272/3 times 4) Wow, thats a lot of tickets ive taken!!!

^Too much math. I hurts my head! And now they have stated that Alstom is 90 days behind in building the PL42ACs. As many of us know, they must be delivered before December 31 of this year in order to beat the tougher emmision standards which will go into effect next year. I wonder what is going to happen.

Wow, thats a lot of tickets ive taken!!!

In the old days, you might lose an arm during switching or get scalded by live steam. Now it's carpal tunnel syndrome

Yeah, Jtgshu, and imagine how many more tickets you will collect until you retire: Assuming no increase in ridership, during the next 35 years, until you retire, you will collect 1,972,670 tickets. How many trips up and down the aisles does that translate to? How many times will you pop the trap doors up and down at South Amboy? How many times will you remind passengers that they need to get off at the end doors? How many times will you...

Man, I take my hat off to you!

NJTrider wrote:Yeah, Jtgshu, and imagine how many more tickets you will collect until you retire: Assuming no increase in ridership, during the next 35 years, until you retire, you will collect 1,972,670 tickets. How many trips up and down the aisles does that translate to? How many times will you pop the trap doors up and down at South Amboy? How many times will you remind passengers that they need to get off at the end doors? How many times will you...

Man, I take my hat off to you!

Well actually, he may not have to raise the traps that much more if South Amboy's new station will have high-level platforms. And if it is indeed built as a high-level station, then he also won't have to climb up to the train anymore (since South Amboy has quite a drop.) He complains about it now- imagine what it would be like in 30-40 years. :D

Boy, you guys really know how to rub salt in a wound, huh...hahahhahaha

As far as I know, South Amboy and Red Bank are next, but it looks as if Little silver will be a low level for the foreseesable future, along with Perth Amboy - the station was just renovated, with no platform work.....

Wow, almost 2 million tickets......man, just think about how much cash I will have cut and collected in tickets by then too. I don't think NJT can say that they don't get their money out of us!!!......

Boy, I hope the Railroad Retirement Board changes their retirement requirements between now and then !!!

Jtgshu wrote:As far as I know, South Amboy and Red Bank are next, but it looks as if Little silver will be a low level for the foreseesable future, along with Perth Amboy - the station was just renovated, with no platform work.....

Perth Amboy will probably be the last station on the elecrified portion to get high level platforms. After all, everyone calls it a ghetto (and being that I was raised there, I resent this. ) Very few express trains (if any) stop there leaving only local trains to get there and no diesel trains (with teh exception of the Pony Express) stop there. This town just gets no respect. (Plus, the process of upgrading it to high would be costly. It is a sunken station so a lot of things would have to be modified- stairs down to it, the building themselves to match the high level platform etc.)