NJ Governor Phil Murphy hosts summit to discuss funding for NJ Transit and Amtrak
NEWARK (WABC) -- New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy met with leaders from NJ Transit and Amtrak on Wednesday to highlight recent service, infrastructure and reliability improvements.
The state recently received more than $100 million dollars in grants to fix issues blamed for those brutal delays over the summer.
The $112 million allocation was announced last week as part of a larger $300 million project to upgrade service along the entire North East Corridor.
"While the fundamental challenge facing our mass transit system continues to be aging infrastructure, we believe that these completed repairs, and the infrastructure investments to come, will make sure New Jerseyans have an easier time getting where they need to go when they need to get there," said Murphy in a statement.
At the summit, Murphy acknowledged Amtrak has now completed its inspection of all 240 miles of catenary overhead wire systems between Trenton and New York City.
"Our partnership with NJ TRANSIT and joint commitment to Governor Murphy to ensure that our collective customers have safe and reliable train service is achieving results," added Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner.
Amtrak also made 839 hardware replacements from the defects identified from the 2,000+ catenary structures captured from the photographs taken during the inspections. Both agencies increased equipment inspections and used high-definition video on top of locomotives to document the interaction of NJ TRANSIT equipment with Amtrak wires.
It's essential that we sustain the same level of attention we have demonstrated over the past five months," said NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kevin S. Corbett. "In addition to the work we are doing to add fiberglass protectors on our pantographs to protect them from impact damage on the NEC catenary, NJ TRANSIT will continue to support Amtrak's efforts to accelerate the work to upgrade the most vulnerable infrastructure along the NEC."
Many of the summer travel delays and cancelations were attributed to overhead wire issues. $18.6 million will be used to upgrade the signal system between New Brunswick and Elizabeth, $13.4 million for modernization overhead wires on a 23-mile stretch of track and $80 million will be used to upgrade the Kearny substation.
While funds are set to be doled out, there are concerns that the incoming Trump administration could deprioritize funding for transportation despite it being a high priority for NJ Transit and Amtrak riders.
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