PATH officials are making good on a promised piece of an ambitious Improvement Program to improve Grove Street and other stations to allow longer 9-car trains on the busy Newark-World Trade Center line.

PATH General Manager Clarelle DeGraffe gave NJ Advance Media a sneak peak of the details and schedule of the project that will add capacity and ease overcrowding on station platforms.

“We’re very excited. One of the high points for us is to put some dollars behind capacity (projects) and addressing a major concern for riders, which is increasing capacity,” DeGraffe said in an interview.

Commuters now complain the system is so crowded, they have to let several trains go by before they can squeeze on during rush hours. Riders also expressed concerns that station platforms are dangerously overcrowded during the commuting rush.

A $78 million project to prepare four stations to accommodate 9-car trains is scheduled to be acted on by the Port Authority’s board of commissioners at Thursday’s meeting in New York. That also includes a preliminary study of what’s needed to implement 10-car trains in the future.

Last June, PATH and Authority officials unveiled a $1 billion improvement plan for the bi-state transit system to answer overcrowding and reliability issues, driven by record ridership on the 13-mile transit system between New York and New Jersey and a residential real estate boom in Hudson County.

lol gg PATH train. I think the phrase is "making a mole hill out of a mountain" with this crowding pic.twitter.com/RH5D7owoLv — Connie (@rampantasian) July 24, 2019

The centerpiece is extending platforms at Grove Street Station and cutting a third crossover between the New York and Newark bound platform at Exchange Place, now there are only two. The project would require some minor modifications at Newark Penn Station and Journal Square station, DeGraffe said.

“The lion’s share of the work will occur at Grove Street and Exchange Place. There will be very minor relocation of equipment at Newark and Journal Square,” she said.

Work at Grove Street requires removing walls at the Marin Boulevard entrance, which will allow enough platform space for passengers on a 9-car train to get on and off, DeGraffe said.

Otherwise, people have walk back through one car into another, which isn’t an ideal situation for riders, especially during rush hours, she said.

"At Exchange Place, we are looking to tunnel through to have another corridor to the other platform,” DeGraffe said. It won’t connect to the escalator or elevator in the other two corridors, but allows riders another way to get from one side of the platform to the other, she said.

What’s the timetable for the work? If the board authorizes the project, design work will start 10 days after Thursday’s vote and will be completed by the end of 2020, DeGraffe said.

“We’ll begin construction at Exchange Place and Grove Street at the same time,” she said. “It will be ready by mid-2022.”

That schedule coincides with the delivery of 72 new rail cars, that starts in Spring 2021, to add extra train sets to the fleet, DeGraffe said. That is expected to increase passenger capacity by 20%, said Scott Ladd, a PATH spokesman.

The improvement plan also calls for PATH to study the work necessary to expand to 10-car trains. Why not jump to that step instead of building for 9 car trains? The most work would be required at Grove Street and officials have to study the extent of construction and how it will affect Jersey City streets above the station.

“Grove Street will take some nimble engineering to understand what needs to happen and is least disruptive,” DeGraffe said. “There will be significant modifications to the station and it will impact some of street area.”

That will require a plan that is “least impactful to the city and customers,” she said. Officials also are watching the development rate

As more new residential developments are built in Hudson County, how long will these PATH improvements last?

“Our current capacity (improvements) can take us to the mid- 2030s,” DeGraffe said. “We can’t project a number because of things in play, (such as) the rate of development. That’s why we initiated our study of 10-car trains.”

PATH officials will be “methodically” watching what gets built and where the residential construction market goes, she said.

Riders have seen some relief as the new Computer Based Train Control system has been put in service that allows trains to run closer together. It’s allowed the addition of two more trains, one on the Newark-World Trade Center and one on the Newark- World Trade Center lines, between 8 and 9 a.m. and 5 and 6 p.m., DeGraffe said. That’s increased capacity by 10%, she said.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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