Stringer wrote:
Jersey City residents vent at a meeting on PATH station closures

By Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal
February 18, 2014 at 10:12 PM

Angry Jersey City residents confronted the director of the PATH train system over the weekend closures of the Exchange Place and World Trade Center stations at a meeting at which Councilwoman Candice Osborne vowed to bring a ferry stop to Exchange Place.

?I will not sleep until we get a ferry,? said Osborne after the standing room only meeting tonight at the Barrow Mansion at which PATH Director Stephen Kingsberry bore the brunt of residents? frustration.

Osborn said there is already a ferry from Jersey City to the World Trade Center that leave from a dock behind the Goldman Sachs building and she said she will try to have it make a stop at nearby Exchange place on the way.

The PATH stations began closing on Saturday and will be closed nearly every weekend this year and possibility into 2015 for a federally mandated, $580 million project that the Port Authority says will replace its mechanical train controls with computerized signals.

Once installed, the system will allow for more frequent train service, the agency said.
At the meeting a representative of the Hyatt Regency Jersey City at Exchange Place told Kingsberry ?We market ourselves as a hotel that is convenient located across the river from Manhattan and by closing that PATH Station you are impacting our ability to serve our guests.?

Others complained that not enough prior notice was given to residents before the closures began. Another told the director the closures will have an impact on business in Jersey City.

On man said many residents located in Downtown because it provided easy access to Manhattan but ?it?s a really a pain trying to get a stroller down to Grove Street to get to the PATH?You are just not providing us with options that people who have families need to use the service.?

During the closures, passengers traveling to Lower Manhattan should use the Journal Square-33rd (HOB) and connect to New York Transit subways or buses (a separate fare is required), according to the Port Authority website.

Recommended transfer points include the 1 train from Christopher Street (exit PATH at Christopher Street), the A/C/E subway trains at West 4th Street (exit PATH at 9th Street), 2/3 subway trains from 14th Street (exit PATH at 14th Street), or the R train from 34th Street (exit PATH at 33RD Street), the website says.

Osborne also noted that people on fixed incomes or who are low income would have to pay additional fares when they transferred to subway lines and Kingsberry said that is an issue he would look into.

Numerous people suggest different possible routes they thought would make the closures more bearable but Kingsberry said the federal government ?requires us to complete it by 2015 and that mandates the shutdown on the weekends. We just can?t possibly do all that work while we are running 24/7.?

After the meeting that lasted about 45 minutes, Kingsberry said he was pessimistic that an alternate system of routes would work.

The stations will not be closed on major holidays. Additional information is available at the Port Authority's websitel.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... ost_473.html#incart_river

ProdigalSon wrote:
Quote:

user1111 wrote:

Because you have the PATH downtown, and no one, not even NJ transit can compete with the cut throat Port Authority.

For a while there were talks of a ferry from Greenville to Red Hook Brooklyn then Port Authority stop that quick by buying Greenville Yards, It does not like competition, and it will c ck block any sort of alternative transportation options.

Where are Greenville Yards?

Yvonne wrote:
They are the puppetmasters for this chaos. The only hope to loosen their grasp may have come due to the nonsense starting to unravel as a result of the Bridge closing. Let the hearings begin so these misfits can be brought to account for their abuse of all of us.

jcman420 wrote:
...
Unfortunately, in yet another sign of its seeming omnipotence, the Authority, as a bi-state agency, is subject to NEITHER NJ's or NY's open public records laws. It is only subject to its own laughable public record policy drawn up by its board. This agency is literally something right out of the Kremlin or some banana republic. They are allowed to operate in near complete secrecy.

Yvonne wrote:
The Port Authority has its muck encrusted footprints in two major projects that will impact us for the next several years; the shutdown of WTC service for a year and then the 33rd St. line for another year. At the same time they are bankrolling the billion dollar overhaul of the Pulaski Skyway set to start 3/29 (Star Ledger 1/7/11) They are the puppetmasters for this chaos. The only hope to loosen their grasp may have come due to the nonsense starting to unravel as a result of the Bridge closing. Let the hearings begin so these misfits can be brought to account for their abuse of all of us.

FakeGreenDress wrote:

My going theory is that this is all about 1WTC, that someone looked at a calendar and panicked that they'd have to shut WTC service after it opens next year. Don't think they considered residents at all, but god forbid they have to inconvenience their precious tenants...

SwitchboardGirl wrote:
Dolomiti, check out NJ Transit bus route 120 with stops on Church Street. Not talking about replacing the PATH with buses.... only adding more buses to help increase our public transportation options to NYC, wouldn't this be a good thing for our city? No bus station necessary.

Dolomiti wrote:
Quote:

SwitchboardGirl wrote:
Why do NJ Transit buses *have* to go to Port Authority?

Each PATH car holds 130 passengers; one NJT bus holds 42. Replacing a single PATH train will require 27 buses. How long will it take to get 20 buses through the Holland Tunnel? Where will they drop passengers off? Where will they do the maintenance?

PA does not run bus lines. NJT doesn't run any lines in NYC. I'm not sure what you're seeing, but it's surely not 20 buses showing up at once.

The simplicity of the solution is belied by the difficulties of actually putting it into practice.

SwitchboardGirl wrote:
Why do NJ Transit buses *have* to go to Port Authority?

Toonces wrote:
Did they seriously not even THINK of alternatives before they announced this outage? Everything they've said and done, so far, suggests they didn't - including the only 2-week notice. In fact, the short notice really says to me that they purposely acted to minimize the public's chance to comment or act, before they started the closures.

Absolutely amazing.

SwitchboardGirl wrote:
I grew up in Rockland County about 30 miles from NYC and we had more options of getting into the city then I do here?.

If anything comes out of this insanity it would be the crazy notion that we need more options period?. PATH or no PATH.

Dolomiti wrote:

NJT has no problems putting in bus services that potentially overlap PA services. It's just not always easy to do so.

For example, there is no bus station near the exit to the Holland Tunnel. Buses would need to get to Port Authority somehow -- e.g. either cut through Hoboken, or ride along the West Side Highway. I suspect that after doing that a few times, you'll curse NJT as much as PA. ;)

Jitneys could work. But if they're dropping off 10,000 people on a Saturday, they're going to need somewhere to drop off and pick up riders. They might also not want to offer 24/7 service. PA has nothing to do with that process.

user1111 wrote:
Because you have the PATH downtown, and no one, not even NJ transit can compete with the cut throat Port Authority.

For a while there were talks of a ferry from Greenville to Red Hook Brooklyn then Port Authority stop that quick by buying Greenville Yards....

Osborne also noted that people on fixed incomes or who are low income would have to pay additional fares when they transferred to subway lines and Kingsberry said that is an issue he would look into.

bodhipooh wrote:
does that mean that the JSQ/33rd St line will be shut down in 2015?

Quite honestly, this whole mess with the PATH (and the assumption on my part that the same will happen in 2015 with the JSQ lines) have me rethinking my choice of living here.

user1111 wrote:

Because you have the PATH downtown, and no one, not even NJ transit can compete with the cut throat Port Authority.

For a while there were talks of a ferry from Greenville to Red Hook Brooklyn then Port Authority stop that quick by buying Greenville Yards, It does not like competition, and it will c ck block any sort of alternative transportation options.

user1111 wrote:

Because you have the PATH downtown, and no one, not even NJ transit can compete with the cut throat Port Authority.

For a while there were talks of a ferry from Greenville to Red Hook Brooklyn then Port Authority stop that quick by buying Greenville Yards, It does not like competition, and it will c ck block any sort of alternative transportation options.

SwitchboardGirl wrote:
Why can't NJ Transit start some new bus routes downtown? I never understood why downtown Jersey City is so under served with buses into Manhattan.

DAllen wrote:
As I understand it, October 1, we're facing another $0.25 increase to $2.75

http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... path-fare-toll-hike-plan/