Could NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line commuters get full direct service to New York Penn?
With the initial steps being taken to begin construction of a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River to Manhattan, a bill co-sponsored by Reps. Tom Kean and Bonnie Watson Coleman asking the federal Department of Transportation to study the effects of transfers on commuting behavior has been passed by the House of Representatives.
The bill is another push toward advocating one-seat rides to Manhattan on NJ Transit's Raritan Valley Line.
Raritan Valley Line commuters during rush hours must change trains in Newark to go to and from Manhattan.
NJ Transit has implemented off-peak hour one-seat service by using dual-powered locomotives that use diesel on the Raritan Valley Line that extends to High Bridge and electricity on the tracks between Newark and Manhattan.
“The Raritan Valley Line serves over 23,000 commuters each day, and many of those commuters have to switch trains at Newark Penn Station during peak commuting hours, unnecessarily extending an already lengthy commute,” Watson Coleman said.
Dan Scharfenberger, the communications director for Kean’s office, said that the study will take a deeper look than previous studies into the effects of transfer commutes.
“This study will uniquely look at the ‘quality of life,’ meaning how the time added to a commute that involves a transfer will impact time lost with family – lost family dinners, missing child sporting events, and decreased out-of-work productivity,” Scharfenberger said.
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The vision of one-seat rides into New York City has sparked a real estate boom in towns along the Raritan Valley Line, such as Plainfield, Dunellen, Bound Brook, Somerville, Raritan Borough and even Lebanon Borough and the Annandale section of Clinton Township, much like the economic boom seen in towns along the Morris and Essex Line when one-seat ride service began.
The Hudson Tunnel Project proposes to rehabilitate the existing tunnel under the Hudson River that carries Amtrak and NJ Transit Northeast Corridor passenger trains between New Jersey and New York and construct a new tunnel and associated railroad infrastructure to carry passenger rail trains while the existing tunnel is being rehabilitated.
The estimated construction cost to complete the new Hudson River Tunnel is $9.22 billion, and the estimated construction cost to rehabilitate the North River Tunnel is $1.81 billion.
Funding will include a combination of federal, state, local and possibly private monies.
The Trump administration appropriated no money for the project.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line one-seat ride to NY to be studied again
