This past month has been one of the coldest in New Jersey in quite some time, with lots of snow—February’s storm was the largest in 5 years. Both the January and February meetings of the Lackawanna Coalition, scheduled to be held in person at the Summit Free Public Library, were cancelled when the library was closed for the day. Although the January storm was disruptive on its own, in February, NJ Transit riders struggled with weather-related disruptions on top of the already-reduced schedule for the Portal Bridge Cutover.
As we move to Daylight Savings Time and the Spring season, we anticipate the new Portal Bridge coming into service on March 15th, assuming no delays from the snow and cold this past month.
We’ll be holding a special meeting in March, to discuss my own line: the Pascack Valley. Starting in 2007, about 2 years after I moved to Woodcliff Lake, the line got weekend and midday service and two-way service during rush hours, for the first time since 1934. Still, there are gaps: the most notorious being the 5.5-hour gap from (Woodcliff Lake times) about 4 p.m. to about 9:30 p.m. heading inbound. Two-way service is limited becaus back in the mid2000s, only 3 of 5 planned passing sidings were constructed. Local politicians objected to the additional sidings then. However, times have changed: traffic and congestion have increased, bus service has not returned after the pandemic, and we think it may be time to consider adding those 2 sidings and increasing the frequency of two-way service on the Pascack Valley Line. I’ll be joined on our panel by Lackawanna Coalition Secretary Daniel Chazin, a Teaneck resident, and MTA Board of Directors Rider Representative Randy Glucksman of Rockland County.
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