Governor Murphy Highlights Investments and Progress for NJ TRANSIT

SECAUCUS – Governor Phil Murphy today joined with Department of Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti and NJ TRANSIT President and CEO Kevin Corbett to highlight historic investments made in the agency after nearly a decade of neglect. Increased funding, engineer recruitment, and a renewed attention to customer experience have already resulted in restoring reliability to the service through a reduction in cancellations and improvement in on-time performance.

“After years of mismanagement, our Administration’s first budget included a historic increase in funding for NJ TRANSIT, enabling the agency to begin a rebuilding process to restore safety and reliability for commuters,” said Governor Murphy. “Over the course of the past eighteen months, NJ TRANSIT has hired its first Customer Advocate and Chief Customer Experience Officer, recruited hundreds of new bus drivers and train engineers, and met federal deadlines to install Positive Train Control, among many other improvements. Now, with the largest investment in NJ TRANSIT in state history, this progress will continue so that NJ TRANSIT will once again be the world-class mass transit agency that New Jersey commuters so richly deserve.”

“In a state as densely-populated as New Jersey, NJ TRANSIT plays a vital role in keeping New Jersey’s economy strong and its residents moving,” added New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner and NJ TRANSIT Board Chair Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti. “The investments we are making in recruitment, funding, and customer service reflect our unyielding commitment to providing safe, reliable, convenient and cost-effective transit service for all New Jerseyans.”

“We have taken major steps to rebuild the foundation of NJ TRANSIT with critical investments to modernize our train and bus fleets along with record setting levels of recruiting, training and hiring,” said NJ TRANSIT President and CEO Kevin Corbett.  “But this is only the beginning. We will continue to maximize our resources to improve the customer experience and deliver the services customers depend on.”

Highlights of the agency’s progress include:

• A $150 million increase in funding included within the FY2020 budget proposal.
• A $31 million joint investment between Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT to improve railroad infrastructure along the Northeast Corridor (NEC), running from the Portal Bridge all the way to Trenton, with work having already begun on improvements at Newark Penn Station.
• The recruitment of 500 new bus drivers and more than 100 train engineers to tackle the shortage that began during the previous administration.
• A renewed commitment to effective communication with customers.
• The first quarter of 2019 saw an overall 47 percent decrease in cancellations versus the first quarter of last year. 
• Over the last three months, on-time performance has consistently exceeded previous year’s metrics.  March 2019 – 93.4% vs. March 2018 88.2%; April 2019 93.8% vs. April 2018 at 92.7%; May 2019 93.2% vs. May 2018 at 91.7% 
• The creation and appointment of NJ TRANSIT’s first Customer Advocate and Chief Customer Experience Officer.