F40 wrote:The plan is not dead yet, at least according to the NY Times sometime this summer. I didn't get a chance to read the article, but in a nutshell, they reported that the plan is being revived in Albany with stipulations that if the congestion pricing does take effect, that mass transit fares have no fare increases.
Albany has been using it as a political circus. They eventually approved a panel to improve congestion which helped them win a $354 million grant from the feds to help implement pricing based congestion reduction. The grant pays for new buses and ferries as well as bus rapid transit to be implemented along with the plan.
northjerseybuff wrote:Anyone following the NYC congestion pricing story? In some recent articles, politicians are stating NJT is at capacity and can't accommodate more people. Some environmentalists are all for it…seems like if it does go through, NJT will experience a LOT of growth…how will they, or can they, handle such an increase of up to 50,000 more users?
AFAIK, no-one is estimating 50,000 more NJ commuters. The article geoffand cited quotes a 14,500 more train and bus riders initially. Kolluri estimates 10-11 new railcars and 50-60 new buses. Considering that NJT is currently in the process of receiving the Multi-Levels and is in the middle of a 1,000-plus new bus order…
Interestingly, in the article Codey is quoted as saying you can't take a train from West Orange to Matawan, which is true. However, you can take a jitney from West Orange to South Orange Station to Secaucus to Aberdeen-Matawan. The only problem as of now is that too many Midtown Directs skip Secaucus. Maybe Codey could be productive and convince NJT to have more MD trains to stop in Secaucus for his constituents.