NJ Transit adding rail cars to offer commuter relief

NJ Transit is adding more cars to its fleet and outsourcing repairs on a backlog of equipment work in an effort to cut down commuter delays, Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday.

The steps Murphy announced are intended to provide immediate relief for rail riders frustrated by late and overcrowded trains as the new governor shapes a state budget that makes funding at the troubled agency "a very high priority."

NJ Transit has seen its resources and workforce drained in recent years while its fleet became old, unreliable and unsafe. Murphy had pledged during his gubernatorial campaign to restore the agency to its former status as a world-class transit system, but that is going to take an unknown amount of time.

"At the least, these steps should help begin to alleviate some of the immediate concerns and greatest headaches for commuters," Murphy said at a news conference at the Trenton train station, where he was joined by new NJ Transit Executive Director Kevin Corbett and Acting Department of Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti.

Those steps include:

Putting 20 cars back into service that had been taken offline for upgrades

Accelerating the NJ Transit repair and inspection schedule to more quickly return cars to service

Leasing additional passenger cars

NJ Transit will meet with parts suppliers to find ways to reduce ordering times and increase parts inventory

Adding staff through more frequent employment tests and hiring events

Some of the changes are already under way. Gutierrez-Scaccetti said that she learned shortly after taking over as commissioner that NJ Transit was 37 cars short of being able to provide "full daily service." As of Thursday morning, she said, 12 of the 20 cars the agency had "sitting in a yard" awaiting upgrades for positive train control equipment were put into service.

The agency has also negotiated a preliminary agreement with Maryland Area Rail Commuter to lease 20 cars "for a period of time," Gutierrez-Scaccetti said, giving NJ Transit a "cushion" if other cars need to be taken offline.

NJ Transit will also outsource repairs to a private vendor through March to try getting through a backlog because, she said, its rail yards are "full of cars" and there isn't enough room to work. Gutierrez-Scaccetti said that to help the agency improve its logistics to get cars back into service, it is increasing its inventory and getting outside help to improve the workflow for repairs.

Besides increasing the frequency of employment testing, NJ Transit recently held an event at Bergen County Community College and took in more than 400 applications and tested 200 people for jobs. The agency is in the process of making offers "to maximize availability of staff to run these trains."

"This is a relatively, what I would call foundational, fundamental type of plan," she said, adding that the overall cost is expected to be "relatively inexpensive."

While the measures are intended to bring quick relief, they are "not going to solve, remotely, every problem at NJ Transit," Murphy said. It needs long-term managerial and operational reforms and "a new financial mind-set both within the agency and the Statehouse that values investment in mass transit," he said.

Murphy is expect to deliver his first budget address in March, which he suggested Thursday will offer greater detail of his designs for improving NJ Transit. But he still cautioned that NJ Transit is a long-term project.

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"In the parlance of all teams reporting to spring training, these folks have inherited a squad that finished in last place last year, notwithstanding really strong players day in and day out," Murphy said. "I don't think we should be expected to be playing for the World Series in October."