The state of New Jersey is often overlooked as a place to pass
through on the way to more important destinations like New York City
or Philadelphia. When it is remembered, the state is often maligned
as the home of industrial wastelands, gangsters and toll highways.
Yet anyone who likes to travel by train and streetcar will
experience “the Garden State” differently. With over eight million
people packed into a relatively small area, New Jersey has had to
find other ways of moving people than crowded expressways. A single
statewide public transit agency, New Jersey Transit, serves the
entire territory, and is expanding its infrastructure rapidly. From
the tangled web of commuter rail routes leading into New York City
to a tiny but ambitious tourist railroad on the Atlantic shore,
there are quite a few lessons for us here in the GTA.
Despite
frequently electing Republican governors and legislators, local
support for public transit is strong. The “Common Sense Revolution”
of former Ontario Premier Mike Harris took its inspiration from
conservative politicians in New Jersey, while ignoring their
pro-transit sentiments. One of North America’s most significant rail
interchanges was recently opened in the suburbs across from New York
City. The expensive Secaucus Junction allows commuter train
passengers to switch between two heavily used rail corridors –
significantly increasing travel options into the Big Apple. An
entirely new light rail line has also been built through the older
neighbourhoods that face New York across the Hudson River. After the
terrorist attacks of September 2001, the cities on the New Jersey’s
side of the river experienced new office development as companies
left lower Manhattan.
On the opposite
side of the state, I recently sampled a unique new light rail line
that GTA planners should look into for inspiration. The River Line
runs for almost 50 kilometers along the Delaware River between two
depressed cities -- the state capitol Trenton and Camden, a working
class city across from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With so much
growth occurring in the sprawling suburbs around New York City as
well as seaside Atlantic City, the western fringe of New Jersey has
been neglected, leaving faded industrial zones and depressed cities.
To spread the
state’s wealth and rejuvenate moribund local economies, New Jersey
Transit negotiated access to an existing freight railway that runs
along the historic Delaware River. Unlike most transit lines built
around the world, the European-designed light rail cars are not
powered by overhead electric wires, but by diesel engines. Ottawa’s
O-Train uses the same technology, as it is can be a cheaper way to
get new train service up and running in a shorter amount of time
than electric or underground transit. The River Line travels through
historic towns as a commuter railroad, then through the streets of
downtown Camden, much like the Spadina streetcar route. Visit
www.riverLINE.com.
Looking across
the water at the newly rejuvenated city of Philadelphia, poor Camden
is going to need a bigger boost than a new streetcar, but maybe the
over-budget River Line will spark a renaissance. Daily commuters
cross the Delaware River between the two cities via the PATCO rail
line, an above-ground route that also links transit users to New
Jersey Transit’s Atlantic City rail line. Part commuter service,
part tourist run, the “A.C.” line carries casino workers, gamblers
and urbanites heading to the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean.
To give
travellers heading to the “Jersey shore” an alternative to crowded
highways, another train service may someday connect to the Atlantic
City line. The Cape May Seashore Railroad follows a truncated
portion of the route that passenger trains used to travel between
the many seaside towns that line southern New Jersey’s ocean coast.
See www.cmslrr.com
Send e-mail to
transit@eddrass.com. Include
address and phone number.