New Jersey Lawmakers Press for Fixes to Commuter-Rail Fiasco

  • NJ Transit leaders scolded for saying turnaround to take years
  • ‘Nothing seems to have changed,’ Republican leader Kean says
Photographer: Alex FLynn/Bloomberg
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State lawmakers told New Jersey Transit leaders to stop saying it will take years to turn around the nation’s second-biggest commuter-rail operator and immediately enact solutions to poor service.

Eight months after Phil Murphy, the then-incoming Democratic governor, called the agency “a national disgrace,” service has continued to erode. Riders in recent weeks have endured faulty air conditioning during a heat wave, trains canceled with little or no notice, skipped stops and crowding. On Thursday, the agency said three rush-hour trains from Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan were canceled on the Northeast Corridor, the railroad’s busiest line.