NEWARK, N.J. — Rail passengers traveling between New Jersey and New York regularly experience delays of 5 hours, and have lost almost 2,000 hours of time and productivity over the course of a five-year study period.
The Associated Press reports those findings from a study released Monday by the Gateway Program Development Corp., which wants to build a new tunnel under the Hudson River and other infrastructure improvements on the Northeast Corridor tracks shared by Amtrak and NJ Transit.
The study found 85 cases over the five-year period when there were delays of 5 hours or more, or about 1.4 such incidents per month.
Bloomberg reports that the data showed 65 days with major tunnel delays, with 35 percent attributable to power failures, and the rest involving track, signals, and other systems. The 108-year-old Portal Bridge, which often fails to close properly after being opened for boat traffic, accounted for another 18 days of delays. On those days, NJ Transit reported that 27 percent of its trains were late, while more than one-third of Amtrak trains were late. Even Long Island Rail Road trains, which do not use the bridge or tunnel but share Penn Station, experienced delays of 16 percent of its trains.
