For North Jersey residents who rely on NJ Transit to get to work, the train system has been anything but reliable to start the summer.
The agency has repeatedly faced delays, including five workdays last week. Problems have been blamed on issues with Amtrak’s overhead wiring, broken trains and even a wildfire near the station in Secaucus.
Many commuters have shared their frustrations with the constant traffic jams on NJ Transit. count in X, formerly Twitter. This week, NorthJersey.com spoke with others who detailed how their travel has been affected lately.
NJ Transit travelers share their experience
At New York’s Penn Station, Adil Sarwar, a frequent commuter who lives in Hoboken and travels to the city every day for work, said the trains have become increasingly unreliable.
“The problems extend beyond the infrequent evening and weekend service, including an additional stop in Hoboken,” Sarwar said. “Frequent breakdowns and delays have caused me to miss several morning meetings.”
The repeated problems have forced travelers like Casi Cortese to get creative. Cortese, as he prepared to board the 11:07 a.m. train from Morris Plains on Tuesday, explained that he had begun traveling during off-peak hours “in the hopes that I could avoid all the mess.”
Cortese and her husband Sal travel to New York several times a week, alternating days so there is someone home to care for their young son. With one of them on the train virtually every day, the couple has gotten used to the long slowdowns that have plagued NJ Transit recently.
“Coming back is always the worst,” Cortese said. “The delays at (New York) Penn Station are horrible.”
The latest misadventure occurred on Monday, Cortese said, when her husband’s train left New York Penn at 6 p.m. before returning at 6:30 due to a power outage. She then had to travel through Hoboken before finally returning to her home in Morris Plains.
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“Every time he has taken a train in the last two weeks, it has been delayed by at least two hours,” Cortese said.
Cortese’s strategy for off-peak commuting seems worth a try, but it may not have paid off on Tuesday. Shortly before their train arrived, a very familiar announcement came over the public address system: rail service in and out of New York Penn was subject to 30-minute delays due to a disabled train in the area.
NJ Transit response to delays
In a statement last week, NJ Transit President and CEO Kevin Corbett said most of the delays appear to be concentrated in an area between Newark and New York. He affirmed the company’s commitment to working with Amtrak to determine the cause of the recurring problems.
“We are as frustrated as our customers,” Corbett said, “and the frequency and impact these issues are having on our customers’ quality of life is clearly unacceptable.”
Not everyone has faced problems. Ashley D’Elia of Maywood waited at the Hackensack train station Tuesday and said her recent trips to the city have been uneventful.
D’Elia doesn’t commute to work, but he said his travel experience has improved since 2015. He traveled on Monday and learned of more cable delays, but avoided any problems.
But Alessandra Muhar, who commutes from Montclair’s Bay Street station, said she has experienced several delays each week for the past few weeks. She had to use the ferry last week when cable problems and the wildfire slowed trains, adding an hour to her trip.
Asked if she was worried about additional delays, Muhar said: “I really don’t know. I hope it doesn’t (happen).”
Muhar often travels with Alex Salas and together they share their frustration over delays. They can cause a lot of stress on your daily routine, she explained.
“Sometimes,” Salas said, “I don’t have enough time to eat.”
Staff writer Joshua Jongsma contributed to this report.
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