New Jersey Transit is like, totally on the verge of this massive crisis, you guys! A strike by train engineers could seriously mess up everyone’s daily commute as early as May 16, according to US Representative Mikie Sherrill. She’s all like, “Everybody needs to sit down and talk it out,” because she’s super worried that it’s gonna be a total disaster for everyone.
So, last month, union workers said no way to a wage deal with NJ Transit, which is like, one of the biggest public transportation systems in the whole country. Negotiations started back up again on April 30.
NJ Transit peeps are telling commuters to just work from home if the strike happens, because they can only bus in about 100,000 people to New York every day. Normally, they move over 925,000 peeps on the reg through trains, buses, and lightrail stuff.
To meet the union’s demands, NJ Transit might have to jack up fares by 17%, hike the corporate transit fee by 27%, or cut back on services. Like, none of those options sound great, right?
The strikes would just add to the problems that have been messing up commutes in and out of Manhattan for years. A lot of those issues come from Amtrak, the train service that lets NJ Transit use its tracks.
Sherrill is like, “Yo, Amtrak needs to be more transparent about what’s going on and how they’re fixing things.” She’s leading the race in the Democratic primary and wants answers from Amtrak about what caused last year’s commuter chaos along the Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak’s all about this Gateway Tunnel project to fix everything, but Sherrill thinks they’re slacking on basic maintenance for now.
She’s the only lady in the primary race, and she’s got a plan to fully fund NJ Transit by bringing in more cash through transit-centered development and more advertising on the trains.
People all over New Jersey are worried that the money from the transit fee might get spent on other stuff instead of going to NJ Transit.
Sherrill’s like, “They need to make sure that cash goes right to transit first and foremost.”
So, yeah, that’s the scoop on what’s going down with NJ Transit right now. It’s kind of a mess, but hopefully, they can figure it out before things get even crazier.
