Updates

Good day to you, and here's what's going on with the Proposal!

--Newark's Mayor, Cory Booker, is behind the project and that gives us the full support of Newark, Kearny and Belleville, a good place to start when considering the project's impact.

--Rep. Steve Rothman's office has indicated that he would be behind the project and provide whatever support is necessary to convince others to sign onto the project, but his transit advisor has indicated that NJ Transit is in no position to have people start work on a project like this - all of their manpower and resources are going towards the ARC tunnel project right now. In addition, he recommended expanding the project as far as it could possibly go and then turning things down later on when NJ Transit has at least had the chance to review the whole project.

With that in mind, I created a Google Map based on new stations available with the whole new line - start to finish.

View Northern New Jersey Light Rail Expansion in a larger map

As such, I'll eventually be redoing (again!) the whole proposal to reflect this.

With the map, I went as far as possible with regards to actual track laid down. Past Watsessing Station in Bloomfield things get a little sketchy because so much of the track has been yanked up. That's why it's stopping there.

More to come!

Clarifications

All,

Please be aware, that while I had previously sought the assistance and guidance of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in regards to our efforts, I am now and will continue to do so going forward, refuse and disavow any connection to this organization.

I believe any organization willing to continue to work with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) after this past electoral cycle is not one that I want myself or my work associated with.

I do not make this decision lightly, nor do I wish to make this a political decision. I believe that any organization with the amount of negative information swirling about, that makes no effort to address key questions about its workers and staffing, and that has significant legal questions surrounding its hiring practices and actual work performed, is not one that I wish to be associated with.

Therefore, since TSTC refuses to dissassociate themselves from ACORN, I must distance myself from TSTC and advise that you do the same until such time as they can be counted on to stand apart from organizations such as ACORN.

Welcome CarWars readers!

Welcome friends! To give you a short idea of what this is about, this image depicts (in blue) the current Newark City Subway (or Newark Light Rail, whichever name you choose to use), as well as (in red) the expansion plan we are proposing, and finally (in black) where we hope it will one day go, should the initial expansion be as wildly successful as we all believe it can be.

It doesn't look like much but it will definitely be enough to pull people off of congested roads in and around North and Downtown Newark, as well as area roads like Route 21, Route 280, and Route 3.

This image doesn't exactly do its northern terminus justice - we're holding our plans down to the towns that have actually signed on and agreed to help in whatever way they can - Newark, Belleville and Kearny. Eventually the line could go as far north as the Clifton / Paterson border, and as far west as Bay Street Station in Montclair.

That requires future support for this project. If you're interested in helping this along, speak with your local representatives or direct them to this site, and ask them to support us now by petitioning NJ Transit to get this service off the ground, and in the future by helping to smooth out any red tape involved in lighting this line back up. You could remind them that property values around rail stations (light and standard) are about ten percent higher, on average, within walking distance and five percent higher within driving distance (NorthJersey.com, retrieved 6/3/2009). You could also remind them of the positive environmental impact that this would have - residents around the light rail extensions would more than likely make use of the light rail than fight traffic going into Newark and New York, and this is true for both electric light rail (best case scenario) and biodiesel-fueled light rail (probable scenario).

Of course, baking cookies and asking nicely might work too.

The actual proposal is available as a Google Doc (to allow it to be editable and downloadable as a PDF or Word document, and to allow environmentally friendly distribution) here.

Turning from 11 to 7ish

So we're dialing back a little after some recent changes that I've noticed. First, obviously, the economy isn't what it was and NJ Transit told me as much in the recent email I got from them. Second, East Newark appears to have torn up all of the remaining railroad ties on the border with Kearny, so new tracks would have to be laid, which would take extra money. Harrison hasn't gotten that far yet but it's not a stretch to see them following suit very soon.

Montclair hasn't given us any information at all. Neither has Glen Ridge, Nutley or Bloomfield. Those three are key to pushing further along the Newark Industrial tracks (yes, thanks to some very wonderful people on www.railroad.net's forum pages, I have better information about the tracks I'm hoping to work with).

At the moment I'm revamping the graphics associated with the proposal but for those interested I'm leaving the bulk of the text in place. New graphics will be added within a day or two.

Oh and for the title of the post: I had turned this up to 11 (reference to "This Is Spinal Tap," don't worry if you didn't get it) but now need to dial it back to 7ish or so.

Last but not least, the proposal link:

Light Rail Extension Proposal (located on Google Docs)

--James

Coming Soon: More Updates!

I'm going to have a week off, following Easter.  I'm going to do what I can to get ahold of the various towns and government agencies involved in this project and get whatever updates I can from them regarding their positions on it.  I'll post what I get from them here.  

Updates

Good day! Here's where things stand so far, with the Newark City Subway Expansion project!

-- Belleville has responded and is in the process of becoming one of NJ Transit's "Transit Villages", or, adapting policies favorable and encouraging towards mass transit. The NCS Expansion is one of their priorities and appears to be picking up steam. More on this as it develops.

-- I've contacted Sens. Menendez and Lautenberg regarding the project, to try and get some help getting Newark's attention. If anyone has any suggestions please leave them in the comments or let me know via email. Sen. Menendez responded by spamming me with his email newsletter, which I did not sign up for and frankly do not want, and Sen. Lautenberg's office advised that their Transportation representative (huh?) will look into this and get back to me. I've faxed the proposal, modified slightly for faxing, to Mr. Lautenberg's office.

-- I've been bouncing an idea around regarding what to do in East Newark, Harrison, and parts of Kearny. Specifically, I'm talking about where the rails cross Passaic Avenue on the border of East Newark and Kearny, in Harrison where the rails cross Schuyler Avenue, and in Kearny where the rails cross over Bergen Avenue and pass onward to the old Boonton Line. The tracks in these areas are either missing or covered over.

Crossing Passaic Avenue, there used to be a bridge which was pulled down due to its being a hinderance for truck traffic in the area. On either side of where this small bridge used to be, the rails are still in place, and the bridge can either be replaced with a taller, lighter bridge or the embankments can be lowered and the street level raised to allow the rails to cross at street level. Either way, part of the current embankments would need to be removed. My vote goes for the total removal of the embankments and raising the street level to allow the trains to cross the street itself.

Crossing Schuyler Avenue, the tracks were basically covered over with blacktop when the road was repaved in the area. This means that the road would need to be pulled up and the small segment crossing Schuyler would need to be replaced. Probably the least of the issues here.

Crossing Bergen Avenue, the tracks appear to have been pulled up a long while ago. I'm not quite sure where they stop but I've been meaning to find out for a while now. Most of this project and its documentation were put together using Google Maps, and while that service has amazing accuracy with regards to literally everything else, in the case of rails it seems to have fallen behind a little. For example, Google Maps and Google Earth list the rail line that the Newark City Subway's Grove Street Station is on as going literally all the way into West Orange, stopping a few blocks shy of the Edison Historic Site. While that'd be awesome if it were the case today, it's simply not the case right now - from what I can tell just by looking at the current satellite view on Google Maps, there are homes and streets that line the area the rails supposedly occupy. If anyone can verify the existence of rails on this path, by the way, I'd love to include it in any future expansion plans. As for the Bergen Avenue area, they may be pulled up but the right of way is still there and is still blank - which means putting new rails down won't be as big an issue as it might've been if there were never rails there in the first place.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Leave them below!

Welcome!

I've created this blog so that I can keep track of all details regarding an expansion plan for the Newark City Subway which would bring it to four other counties in Northern New Jersey.  

Soon I'll be hosting polls and linking to stories regarding existing expansion plans already sanctioned and funded by NJ Transit but for now here's a link to the proposal for the NCS's expansion.  

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgqvrqtt_18dxmcbtrt

I'm also trying to make sure people can find the proposal and news regarding its status without remembering a URL like the one you see above.  

Comments are welcome and encouraged - while Google Docs does not make them available on documents, they are certainly available here, so please take full advantage of that.