One of the more impressive state owned and operated railway networks in the USA, is that of NJ Transit. With about 690,000 daily workday passengers, 209 million annual trips and a thousand miles of tracks it ranks it ranked the 6th Transportation Authority in the country by Annual Trips, with 206 million and second by Annual Passenger Miles, with 2.4 billion passenger miles. In 1983 it took over the federal government owned Conrail network in New Jersey, most of which came from the former private company Penn Central that had gone bankrupt and had been nationalized in 1974. In those days, many private rail companies could no longer compete on an equal footing to the tax funded road network, forcing them to defer maintenance and sell off assets (like the old Penn Station). Perversely, some of their own tax dollars were being used to fund their competition in the form of a largely federally funded interstate road system. Despite it’s impressive passenger numbers and network, the New Jersey railroads used to be more impressive and faster for commuters. The best way to show this is to compare an isochrone map from 1923 with one from today in 2023. Here to maps I researched and drew.
Sadly I am not sure which of the numerous in 1923 existing railways operated passenger services, but it is obviouse that several lines were abandoned in the last 100 years. For example the passenger rail service between Montclair, Caldwell, Livingston, Hanover and Morristown is missing, opening a large hole the 2023 coverage. Here Morristown actually has a travel time improvement of about 15 minutes in 2023 compared to 1993. But for Boonton the Manhattan connection is 30 minutes slower.
In Bergen County, Hackensack and Ridgewood maintained their passenger service and travel time to New York, but closer to the Hudson Bergenfield, Englewood, Dumont and Sparkill (in NY) lost their service.
Around New Brunswick several passenger rail services have been axed in the last 100 years, but there have also been some travel time improvements. South Brunswick station at Monmouth Junction closed and between Jersey Ave and Princeton Junction there is a coverage gap.
The North Jersey Coast Line is slower in a couple of places but largely still provides the same speeds to a hundred years ago. Further inland, service to Freehold, Jamesburg and Marlboro Township is no longer provided and in some case the right of way has been paved over to make bike trails, see the for example the Henry Hudson Bike Trail
Any corrections, additional information or thoughts on this topic, I would love to hear them.
Alternative Transport 