Thousands of Tales of Torment From the Nation’s Worst Transit System
One Friday morning in May, passengers on a Manhattan-bound bus spotted their driver nodding off and drifting across lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike. To keep him alert, they plied him with mints and gum.
On another weekday, a pedestrian asked New Jersey Transit whether a bus driver was “flirting or just being funny” when he almost struck her in a Newark intersection. And then there were 11 drivers who reportedly flipped the bird while at the wheel, some as they drove by commuters without stopping.
Every day, hundreds of fed-up, frightened and frazzled bus and rail riders file reports about their commutes via the agency’s “Contact Us” website function. During just four weeks in April and May, 7,000 stories—mostly complaints—were shared. The tales, captured in 666 pages obtained through a public-records request, provide a ground-level glimpse of a cash-strapped agency struggling to repair and upgrade its equipment and fill staff vacancies.
“This is the New York City metropolitan area, the biggest in the country, and it is a FAILURE!” a train customer wrote on April 14, amid a service meltdown. “Look at London.” A week later, another wrote: “Just back from Japan. NJ Transit is so backwards.”
Commuter Angst 😠
NJ Transit, with almost 1 million passenger trips on an average weekday, was once a national model. Its railroad now leads its U.S. peers for the most accidents, fines and breakdowns, federal data show, and state lawmakers are investigating its finances and safety.
Breakdowns Leader
NJ Transit
540
MBTA Commuter Rail
356
New Haven and Shore Line East
158
SEPTA
117
Metro-North
98
Long Island Rail Road
97
Metrolink
94
FrontRunner
90
Caltrain
69
Chicago-area Metra
68
Tri-Rail
66
Coaster
31
MARC
25
Rail Runner Express
24
PennDOT
15
Sounder
14
South Shore Line
9
DART
6
Downeaster
4
ACE
3
SunRail
2
VRE
1
NJ Transit
540
MBTA Commuter Rail
356
158
New Haven and Shore Line East
117
SEPTA
98
Metro-North
97
Long Island Rail Road
94
Metrolink
90
FrontRunner
69
Caltrain
68
Chicago-area Metra
66
Tri-Rail
31
Coaster
25
MARC
24
Rail Runner Express
15
PennDOT
14
Sounder
9
South Shore Line
6
DART
4
Downeaster
3
ACE
2
SunRail
1
VRE
540
NJ Transit
356
MBTA Commuter Rail
158
New Haven and Shore Line East
117
SEPTA
98
Metro-North
97
Long Island Rail Road
94
Metrolink
90
FrontRunner
69
Caltrain
68
Chicago-area Metra
66
Tri-Rail
31
Coaster
25
MARC
24
Rail Runner Express
15
PennDOT
14
Sounder
9
South Shore Line
6
DART
4
Downeaster
3
ACE
2
SunRail
1
VRE
It’s the rider complaints that illustrate the day-to-day dysfunction at the nation’s largest statewide mass-transit operator. All personal identifying information was redacted in the submissions obtained by Bloomberg News, though the agency answered questions about the most troubling allegations. The driver reported to be dozing on the turnpike was taken off duty and referred to the medical department, said Nancy Snyder, an NJ Transit spokeswoman. Unspecified action was taken against the driver who may have been flirting or joking.
Complaints represent a small fraction of ridership, Snyder said in an email. Employees “are rigorously trained in customer service,” she said.
“Any report of a negative interaction with the front-line employee is immediately documented and sent to the appropriate management personnel for a thorough investigation,” Snyder said. “If a violation of policy is determined, corrective action is swiftly taken.”
Mostly Bad 👎
Of the comments submitted April 14 to May 17—a period including a Hudson River tunnel power failure and multiple rush-hour delays—one in five demanded a refund. Just 17 percent were classified by NJ Transit as suggestions, commendations and information requests.
The rest, 83 percent, were complaints.
Hundreds groused about unexplained service delays, with one writing: “Please stop treating us like idiots and give us the information we need so we can get home rather than spending hours in the world’s worst train station.”
“No one gives a damn about who is to blame,” wrote a train passenger angry about NJ Transit’s attributing lateness to Amtrak, which owns the tracks and New York’s Pennsylvania Station. “People want a solution.”
Among the bright spots, riders praised employees for reuniting them with lost belongings, explaining tricky connections and keeping calm with irate passengers. One driver stopped a street mugging. An 11-year-old girl who boarded the wrong bus got home safely with help from the driver’s wife. Two passengers were grateful to a conductor “apologizing for a nightmare week.”
“A conductor’s treatment of a passenger can make the difference between a good day and a bad one, and she consistently does her utmost to make sure that we all have the best day,” a rider on the Montclair-Boonton line wrote about one employee. “NJ Transit is so fortunate to have her and so many other fine folk working for them in different capacities.”
In some instances, the submissions are of the wise-cracking or eyebrow-raising variety.
One half of an amorous couple, reminiscing about trysts on Hungarian mass transit, inquired—twice—about whether they could romp on NJ Transit vehicles, saying the location was, uhm, conducive.
A train rider who crossed the tracks on foot complained that a crew member used curse words to scold him.
“When someone does something they don’t think is stupid but we know otherwise, yeah, we’ll get testy,” said Steve Burkert, general chairman of the United Transportation Union Local 60, which represents NJ Transit conductors. Last year, 80 people were struck by on-track NJ Transit equipment, federal data show. Crew who tend to the gruesome aftermath sometimes require months of psychological counseling, Burkert said.
Odorous Bus 👃
Though reported problems with NJ Transit employees can make for unusual narrative—“I usually do not complain about bus drivers, but are they allowed to burn incense on the bus?”—far more complaints involve unreliability. Riders taking mass transit for a special occasion—a wedding, a flight to Spain, a Yankee game—complained of arriving late or not at all.
Regular riders described the soul-sapping toll of being absent for family meals and children’s bedtimes. One expectant father wrote that sonogram appointments came and went without him.
“When the end of the month comes and I’ve been late every day, I have no patience,” a train commuter wrote. “You have my $280 and I have no reliable transportation to work. ”
New Jersey Transit’s fiscal woes have forced commuters to pay higher fares—two increases under Governor Chris Christie—while suffering more delays and crowding. To patch budget holes, Christie, a term-limited Republican who leaves office in January, has diverted $3.44 billion in capital funding to operations.
Bird Flippers 🐦
Among customers’ filed complaints about New Jersey Transit, the words “rude,” “unacceptable,” “joke” and “ridiculous” appear more than 560 times. The reports contain 300 allegations of buses blowing by stops. A driver who reportedly didn’t yield in a crosswalk “actually stuck his tongue at me,” a pedestrian wrote.
“I’m outside the door nearly in tears BEGGING to be let on,” a rider complained. “She just rolled off, nearly taking my feet with her.”
In that case, “appropriate corrective action was taken,” NJ Transit said. All missed-stop reports are forwarded to bus operations, the agency said, and the usual cause is found to be no available seats. Other times it’s visibility, and sometimes it’s a policy violation.
Ray Greaves, an NJ Transit board member and state chairman of the Amalgamated Transit Union, representing bus workers, didn’t respond to an email and text message asking for comment, and his voice mailbox was full.
For some aboard the buses and trains, the trip is worsened by thoughts of vulnerability.
“I carry a dust mask in my bag, wear shoes I can run in,” one commuter wrote. “This isn’t even being paranoid; it is reality. I seriously fear that something will happen to me” at Penn Station, where false reports of a gunman set off a stampede on April 14. Some riders that day, stuck without power for three hours in Amtrak’s tunnel under the Hudson River, were rattled when they heard employees saying a train had “blown up.”
An NJ Transit tunnel to Manhattan, scheduled to be in service as soon as next year, was eliminated in 2010 by Christie, who cited design flaws and cost overruns. Another proposal, Amtrak’s $30 billion Gateway project, lacks federal funding even as the only train link, a century-old tunnel damaged by Hurricane Sandy floodwaters, has less than 20 years left of service.
One commuter recounted moving to South Orange from Manhattan because of express service to the city, but complained of “consistently dealing with derailments and delayed trains.”
“I purchased my monthly pass for May and at this point, driving every day seems like a better option,” the rider wrote. “I want to be refunded.”