Light rail may start in a month It seems the Hudson Bergen Light Rail Transit System is always a stop away.
John Johnston, president of 21st Century Rail Corporation, which built and will operate the billion-dollar light rail system, told the state Assembly Light Rail Transit Legislative Panel yesterday that while the official opening date hasn't yet been set, the system might be ready for the public sometime at the end of March or beginning of April.
Officials have marked March of 2000 as the official start up date since the project was merely a speck on Hudson County's transportation horizon, but recently NJ Transit has been using the word spring for the debut.
"We haven't been real specific," said Ken Miller, a spokesman for NJ Transit. "We've been saying spring, and we hope to have an announcement sometime in the near future."
The trains have been rolling through intersections recently as the system is timed, checked and debugged. There is still some construction in progress on the initial operating system, like drainage and paving work on the Park and Ride facility for the 34th Street station in Bayonne, Johnston reported to the panel.
Assemblywoman Rose Marie Heck, R-Lodi, who chairs the panel, said light rail in New Jersey has been decades in the making, and, having been raised in Hudson, she is excited to see it all start along the Hudson River.
She expects the success of Hudson's light rail will drive similar projects in Union County and in the southern regions of the state as well as a leg stretching into Staten Island from the 34th Street station in Bayonne, where the initial operating system begins.
Sometime this spring, service will run from Bayonne north to Exchange Place in Jersey City, with one western spur to Westside Avenue in Jersey City.
Work was being done on the ticket vending machines at the Liberty State Park Park and Ride station yesterday as the final touches are applied to the Hudson rail line, which will lead to the Hoboken Terminal.
From the Hoboken Terminal, the second operating system will run through the North Bergen Park and Ride and to an underground station on Bergenline Avenue, said Jeffrey Warsh, executive director of NJ Transit.
Warsh presented the panel with an investment study and environmental impact statement for the West Shore Region. There were three light rail packages that provide service in different areas included in Warsh's briefing.
"It's not a matter of which one will be built, but which one will be built first," he told the panel.
The first package, the West Shore Commuter Rail via the Sports Complex, would run from Hoboken through Secaucus, to the Meadowlands Sports Complex and into West Nyack.
A North Branch Light Rail would run from Hoboken to Weehawken and to Englewood, as an extension of the Hudson Bergen Light Rail. And the third, the Bergen Cross County Light Rail would start from Hoboken and go to Weehawken, to the Vince Lombardi Park and Ride in Ridgefield, through Maywood and stretch to Paterson.
"Bergen County is vital to the Hudson Bergen line, with 100,000 projected riders," Heck said.