Hawaiitiki wrote:F40 wrote:I took the HBLR today and was just wondering why there were no travel alerts & advisories on the NJT website about the construction at Exchange Place this weekend? The connecting services to/from the light rail (whether it be bus or PATH) are just as important (because it affects patronage) and the construction schedule (half-hourly as opposed to 20 minutes) wreaks havoc with the connection times especially for buses.
I have also had to unfortunately handle this a few weeks ago with the construction near Port Imperial; however, at least that was posted on the site. The Light Rail is a nice, quaint system which is great when it's a well-oiled machine. However, I will be avoiding the Light Rail on weekends like the plague because of these experiences. That is all.
I'm with you. Had a similar experience about a month ago. I was trying to take the LR from Hoboken 9th to Liberty State Park on a Saturday. The waiting times display was down and folks were just kind of looking at each other. Then after about 10-15 minutes, some guy with a clipboard (who I think worked for NJT) with no NJT ID visible dressed in gym clothes comes over and just tells us that we need to get on a bus up in JC Heights to get to Newport then switch to the light rail. In the end, it took over an hour to get to Newport alone after waiting for and taking the bus. I checked the NJT website, twitter feed and HBLR twitter feed on my smart phone. And of course, nothing. And of course, no posted signage at the station. From my experience taking the light rail on weekends, this was not atypical.
I think there should be more accountability on the Light Rail side to improve the customer experience. Make sure those who are to put up signs actually go to every station, or for the person responsible for uploading it on the website, a second employee checks to make sure the message gets posted. The only paper notice I saw for the Exchange Place construction was inside the cars themselves, which frankly does not help at the end of a long day (this time I only took it one way). It is a bad feeling when you get off the bus thinking you just made the 4:40 with a comfortable 3 minutes to spare, only to find out the train already left 1 minute before you got there based on the new "half-hourly" schedule, and you end up waiting the full 30 minutes for the next one plus delays en route.
And do not try your luck with connecting with a bus which comes from the PABT. Some of these buses have a knack for not showing up (for example, the schedule says 10:00pm, 10:20, 10:40, 11:00pm, but the 10:20 never shows up, and the "10:40" bus comes 10 minutes late) and there is no notice of anything. There is usually no traffic in the tunnel at this time, so where are these buses? 45-minute connection times simply does not work for the normal traveler.
