Bombardier Transportation made it official, announcing it has signed a contract for 113 Multilevel III commuter rail cars with New Jersey Transit worth as much as $669 million.
New Jersey Transit has named veteran passenger railroad executive Raymond P. Kenny as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Rail Operations, effective immediately.
By 2026, provided the procurement is fully funded and all options are exercised, New Jersey Transit—empowered by an infusion of much-needed funding by Governor Phil Murphy following a starvation diet imposed by his predecessor, Chris Christie—will have replaced its entire fleet of aging single-level cars with nearly 650 new Multilevels, many of which will be powered electric vehicles, the first of their type in North America.
New Jersey Transit announced Dec. 5 that Positive Train Control is “95% complete” toward meeting compliance with the Dec. 3, 2018 interim deadline. Concurrently, the agency launched “a new comprehensive communications initiative aimed at improving the customer experience” and announced a procurement for new multi-level railcars.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo toured one of the two North (Hudson) River rail tunnels on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor linking New Jersey and New York to view corrosion and damage, and called on President Trump to support funding for repairs.
Editor’s Note: Following is an edited response to my editorial of Aug. 10, 2018, on a New Jersey Transit board meeting. See below for further clarification.
A detailed assessment of New Jersey Transit calls for the transportation agency to streamline management, improve strategic planning and procurement, and find a source of sustainable funding.
It’s going to take a while for New Jersey Transit to dig itself out of the oversize trench that oversize-ego, oversize-mouthed “Bridgegate” Chris Christie gleefully dug for it during his eight interminably long, interminably loud and intrinsically corrupt years as governor of the Garden State. Meanwhile, NJT customers are enduring the effects of Christie’s transportation starvation diet—a locomotive engineer shortage, cancelled commuter trains, and a PTC implementation program that’s behind schedule.
New Jersey Transit, the nation’s third-largest public transportation agency, on Aug. 8 adopted a Fiscal Year 2019 budget consisting of $2.32 billion in operating expenditures and a $1.46 billion capital program. The budget, which NJT stressed does not include any fare increases, “supports continued investments in personnel, infrastructure and equipment to maintain the system in a state-of-good-repair and enhance the overall customer experience.”
The Gateway Program Development Corp. knows the importance to showing and not just telling when it comes to complicated transportation projects.
