Nine-month suspension coming to three light rail stops in Jersey City
The affected stops include the one on Martin Luther King Drive.
By Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal
JERSEY CITY — Light rail passengers in parts of Jersey City should prepare themselves for a major disruption starting this spring, with NJ Transit planning to shut down service for nearly a year along a route that includes three stations.
The suspension is scheduled to coincide with sewer work performed by the Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority and will last from June 1 to March 1, 2020. The affected stations are at West Side Avenue, Martin Luther King Drive and Garfield Avenue.
There are more than 5,000 daily riders on the light rail branch that heads to the three affected stations, according to a NJ Transit spokeswoman.
The MUA is repairing a deteriorating pipe that runs underneath the light rail tracks. NJ Transit says it will take two months just to decommission the affected portion of the line and remove wires and track so the MUA can begin its own work.
During the suspension, bus service will ferry passengers from each station to the light rail stop at Liberty State Park. The park-and-ride at the West Side Avenue station will remain open.
The planned suspension is the latest bad news for public transportation on the south side of the city. Coach USA recently announced its No. 4 bus, which runs from the southern point of Greenville to the Newport mall, will shut down on March 2 because of "low ridership." And Citi Bike Jersey City has removed almost all of its bike-share stations out of the neighborhoods south of Communipaw Avenue.
NJ Transit will host public hearings on the light rail service suspension on Thursday, March 7 on the New Jersey City University campus from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 6 to 8 p.m. in multipurpose room B in the Gilligan Student Union Building. Enter on Culver Avenue.
The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail has the most passengers of NJ Transit's light rail lines, with an average of 52,000 weekday trips compared to 19,500 on Newark's light rail. Ridership topped 15 million in 2017.
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.