TRENTON – At a hearing aimed at addressing dysfunctions and line shutdowns at NJ Transit, legislative leaders this morning laid into Kevin Corbett, executive director of NJ Transit, and NJ Commissioner of Transportation Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti.

“If you’re going to cancel something you have to do it before, not when people are angry,” Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-37) said.

Failing engineers on the job in the aftermath of years of underfunded transit, the temporarily suspended Atlantic City line will return in January.

But “It’s beyond frustrating for the past two years or more, nothing seems to have changed,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R-21). “We’ve had years of conversation, research, proposed reforms on a bipartisan basis. …When we’re looking at something like the Atlantic City line, Senator Brown is extremely concerned…”

“I want to be clear: if we didn’t shut down the Atlantic City line, it would have shut down itself,” said Gutierrez-Scaccetti. “We will be better at planning.”

Lawmakers received confirmations from the transportation chiefs that NJ Transit would expedite the waiver of residency requirements for engineers, which have impeded the speed-up of new hires.

State Senator Nick Sacco (D-32) said he has noticed improvement in the delivery of services since the new administration took charge.