Mike Davis

@byMikeDavis

NEW YORK — Before the Friday night train even left Penn Station, New Jersey's elected officials were ready to strike in the best way they knew how.

Five people were injured and thousands saw their commutes become nightmarish, but state legislators and Gov. Chris Christie already scheduled hearings, threatened to pull funding and began the finger-pointing that's accompanied multiple railroad failure over the last few years.

But that's not enough, according to the transportation advocates and experts who have pushed for a long-term solution.

“These legislators want to act like heroes because they held hearings,” said Len Resto, president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers. “Don’t hold hearings. Give money. There’s no need for investigation – we know what happened. Where’s the money? That’s what’s missing.”

MORE: Cause of NJ Transit derailment identified

Christie and NJ Transit blamed Amtrak for not keeping up its infrastructure, despite the $62 million NJ Transit paid for the rights to use Penn Station and the Northeast Corridor, in addition to monthly rent of up to $5 million. Christie ordered those payments ceased until Amtrak can prove its infrastructure is in good repair.

Resto called that move "grandstanding" by the governor. Instead, Christie should advocate President Donald Trump to restore funding to Amtrak's "New Starts" program, the centerpiece of its funding for the Gateway Program, cut in the first draft of his fiscal year 2018 budget.

MORE: Transportation has big needs but slack funding

The crux of that $20 billion project is the construction of two new rail tunnels between New Jersey and New York, along with replacement of the Portal Bridges and an expansion of Penn Station. In 2010, Christie personally canceled the "ARC" railroad tunnel and its new Manhattan train station a few blocks away from Penn.

In situations like the April 3 derailment, that new station could provide relief, former ARC project director Martin Robins told the New York Times last week.

DERAILED: NJ Transit commuter woes after Penn Station derailment

“It’s a continuing disappointment,” said Robins, a former deputy executive director at NJ Transit and director emeritus of the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University.

“Every month, it comes back to haunt us in one way or another that the project was not built," he said.

Last week, Christie said he was confident that Trump would back the Gateway project, "speaking personally" to him about it.

In a letter to leaders of congressional transportation committees, Booker and Menendez called for that funding to be restored, "recognizing the urgent threat to our state and the dire need for infrastructure investment around the country."

"While this week has been no picnic, it could be much worse," wrote policy analyst Janna Chernetz in a blog for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a public transportation advocacy group. "When it comes time to take one of the two North River Tunnels out of service, capacity won’t be reduced by a little over a third; it will be reduced by 75 percent."

Amtrak President and CEO Wick Moorman said the derailment was caused when the wood ties in railroad track deteriorated, the tracks shifting under the weight of the train. Amtrak was aware of the issue but hoped it would be tackled by scheduled maintenance.

“If you don’t have the money, you can’t do anything,” Resto said. “It’s like trying to keep something together with duct tape so it will hold until next month.”

Mike Davis: 732-643-4223; mdavis@gannettnj.com