NJ Transit is about to take out the mother of all new vehicle loans -- $500 million to purchase new trains and buses to rid the fleet of the old ones that break down and cause delays.

The financing could come from the state Economic Development Authority, scheduled to decide on Tuesday whether to issue tax exempt transportation revenue bonds. NJ Transit’s board could vote Wednesday to authorize spending the $500 million to replace aging trains and buses.

This will be a miserable ride home. Thanks @NJTRANSIT ... Get some new buses and retire these broke ass hunks of junk pic.twitter.com/zO05tlTkZk — Sherbet Lemons (@burritonightcap) November 8, 2019

The financing would allow NJ Transit to retire some of its oldest GP40 diesel locomotives, which were built in the 1960s and rebuilt in the early 1990s. NJ Transit has 52 of those locomotives. Twenty-nine would be replaced and 17 rebuilt and remain in revenue service, under the agency’s 2014 fleet plans.

That plan also calls for replacement of 1,338 NABI city-style buses starting in 2021. Those buses would be purchased over six years under the plan.

The purchase would come on the heels the agency’s ongoing $100 million replacement of NJ Transit’s aging 1,200-cruiser bus fleet, happening over five years, and its $75 million plan to build and purchase 113 electric-powered, multi-level rail cars, which will replace the 40-year old Arrow III cars in use now. Another 17 dual-mode locomotives are included in the fiscal year 2020 budget.

The goal of the replacement program is to have a younger fleet, which reduces breakdowns and delays, NJ Transit officials said in earlier interviews. The fleet plan has a goal of replacing city buses by the time they are 12 years old.

Buying new buses sets NJ Transit on a path to decrease the average age of the bus fleet to 6 years old by 2024, which would reduce breakdowns, said Eric Daleo, vice president of capital programs in an earlier interview. That plan would give NJ Transit its youngest bus fleet since 2005, he said. Now the fleet’s average age is 9 years.

The average age of trains is expected to drop to the 20-year mark after all of the 40-year-old cars are retired in the early 2020s, he said.

@NJTRANSIT_NBUS the 3:15 114x has broke down THREE times now! This time in the middle of route 1-9!!! Nobody is saying anything and we’ve been waiting for just about two hours.

Get it together!! — Eneko Nekoban (@Lnkm00) December 6, 2019

NJ Transit has been ranked as having the most or next to most bus and train breakdowns in the nation by the Federal Transit Administration. In 2015, FTA statistics showed NJ Transit had more trains breakdown than any other transit system in the nation.

In 2016 and 2017, the FTA statistics showed NJ Transit had the second highest breakdowns in the nation after Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority trains. FTA statistics for 2018 haven’t been released yet.

Those rankings are measured by the mileage that trains and buses travel before a breakdown that results in a delay, called the mean distance between failure.

Trains traveled 74,984 miles between breakdowns in October, an improvement from 68,823 miles traveled in October 2018, according to agency statistics. NJ Transit trains hit a four-year low in Dec. 2018, traveling 65,796. The best figures were in Sept. 2016 when trains rolled a high of 92,705 miles without a breakdown.

Buses traveled 7,995 miles so far this year between breakdowns, a sight drop form the 8,435 miles for the same time period last year, according to NJ Transit data.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

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