The PATH trains, Port Authority’s underground connection from Manhattan to New Jersey, are celebrating their centennial today. As part of the festivities, everyone rides free. So if you’ve never taken a PATH, today just might be your lucky, free day. Maybe one day during the second hundred years, the MTA and PANYNJ can figure out how to integrate the subways and PATH to provide a one-fare ride to New Jersey. [City Room]
19 comments
The easiest way of integrating the two systems will be for the MTA to agree to take over PATH, using a similar interstate arrangement to the one that lets it run Metro-North trains in Connecticut. Alternatively, you could go all the way and start a metro area-wide development corporation subsuming the MTA, Port Authority, and the New York-oriented operations of the New Jersey Transit.
If you’re serious about consolidaton, don’t go for half measures. Unify the rail operations of SEPTA, NJ Transit, the MTA, both Port Authorities (NJ/NY and NJ/PA), and Connecticut. Maybe go as far as Boston’s MBTA and Baltimore-DC’s MARC and Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor operations (the only profitable line they operate). The eastern seaboard is one rail system and it’s long past time for it to be operated as one again.
Again?
I don’t think all these systems were EVER operated as one giant system.
You had the Pennsyvania Railroad, Erie Railroad, New York Central, New York New Haven and Hartford, New York Boston and Westchester, Brooklyn Rapid Transit, Interborough Rapid Transit, Long Island Railroad, etc. etc. etc. and I’m leaving out dozens of other carriers that were still in business during World War II, like all the railraods in New England, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, plus the streetcars in New York, Newark, Paterson, Phildelphia, Baltimore, New Haven, and Boston, plus frieght railroads, plus long forogotten interubran trains like the line connecting Paterson N.J. with Suffern N.Y. that was removed by 1938…did I forget anything?
I wonder how much it costs to connect the PATH’s 6th Avenue branch to the 7 train at 5th Avenue. Then we could have a Flushing to Manhattan to Jersey Line or the 9 train. We could then connect the 6 with the PATH’s WTC branch. A Bronx-East Side- Jersey Line. This way we could finally integrate the systems.
Scott,
You’re right. I got carried away by rhetoric; drop the “again.” But I think my point still stands.
Quinn, there are no existing track connections between PATH and the subway, and the PATH doesn’t even go up to 42nd St. Extending it that far would be tricky – the 6th Ave IND is in the way, for one thing. And even if you could make the physical connection, the two systems use different electrical systems (I think), different signaling systems, and don’t even use rolling stock of the same width – the PATH cars are even narrower than IRT cars. So I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The PATH cars are marginally wider than IRT cars (9.2 versus 8.8 feet), but I think they should be interoperable.
I’d stop at the boundaries of New York metro for a unified system. It’s possible to neatly separate the New York- and Philly-oriented portions of the NJT, and so far there’s no reason to run a commuter line from Penn Station all the way to 30th Street Station.
I don’t think successful integration requires shared tracks. If the two agencies could adopt a one-fare payment structure, all would be solved. You can already get from PATH to the A, B, C, D, E, F, N, Q, R, W, V, 2 and 3 trains through underground tunnels. Just drop the fare barriers and figure out operating expenses.
I am not sure that a common fare structure for PATH and the subway is such an urgent priority. Yes, it would allow NJ commuters to save a couple of dollars a day, but I haven’t heard any great community outcry about it.
A while back, there was a very serious proposal to connect the 6 train to PATH’s WTC line, which would give NJ commuters the straight shot to the East Side that they don’t have today. An independent group had done their own engineering study. It would have required only a very short tunnel from the WTC terminal to the 6 train’s Brooklyn Bridge terminal. Obviously there are inter-operability issues, but they were solvable.
The agencies rejected it, and with the new PATH terminal now under construction, the opportunity has now passed.
The main reason to integrate the system is actually not PATH/NYCT, but the LIRR/NJT. It turns out you can massively increase capacity by through-routing trains. Terminals induce wait times that reduce headways. The busiest tracks of NYCT, Lex and QB Express, are those that run two lines and thus split terminals; their capacities are 30 tph in theory, and about 25 in practice after factoring in rush hour dwells. In contrast, Lex Local is already at capacity at 21, limited by turning trains at Pelham Bay Parkway.
So it makes sense to do a similar thing for commuter rail and split the terminals among many outbound points on the other side of the CBD. Right now, that means routing some LIRR trains through as NJT; LIRR capacity into Penn Station is higher than NJT capacity, so it will involve some Penn Station short-turns until THE Tunnel is built, but since through-routing only requires 2 tracks out of 21, net capacity will still go up. A system based on through-routing doesn’t actually need that many tracks; on the RER, which is based on through-routing commuter rail lines, one 4-track station, Chatelet-Les Halles, has a slightly lower ridership than the entire LIRR and NJT combined.
In the shortest term, the best that can be done is having some LIRR trains continue north of Penn Station along the Hudson Line, running as Metro-North. The same capacity considerations apply. It will also make it easier to live in Long Island and work in the Hudson Valley or vice versa, since right now road connections are jammed and direct transit connections don’t exist.
In principle it would be even better to connect Hoboken and Flatbush via Fulton… but that’s far more ambitious.
Actually, the RER station Chatelet – Les Halles is a six-track station. The SNCF-run RER D also operates through the station. However, your statistic may count only the RER A/B, unless you’re talking trips beginning or ending in the station.
Of course, integration of LIRR/NJT is a GREAT idea!
Oh yeah, two more things:
1) There will be a tunnel connection to the IRT 4/5 from the WTC PATH as part of the new Fulton Transit Center. I guess that’s a sort of East Side Access.
2) Why would PATH want to integrate with NYCT Subway along the same tracks, when they have such a swell system of synchronized transfers (i.e. Grove Street, Pavonia/New Port, and Journal Square) ? And the different signals don’t help either. Main project for PATH = Newark to Newark International Airport.
I stand corrected, but the B and D share tracks between Gare du Nord and Chatelet-Les Halles, so the bottleneck is four-track (two for the A, two for the B and D).
My statistic is just given as the ridership statistic for the RER station. I don’t know if it’s comparable to the per-station statistics in New York, which give the number of rides beginning at the station. The NJT/LIRR total is 535,000 per weekday.
Louis, I don’t think NJTransit would be too thrilled with the idea of a PATH train to Newark Airport. Their $15 one-way, one-seat ride to the airport would be severely undermined by a $1.75 trip out that way.
It’s not going to stop Port Authority from building it.
With a stop at South Street.
In reference to the EWR Station….Continental Airlines bears brunt for the financial upkeep of the station, I suppose that would eliminate any quarrel NJT might have.
Which South Street? The one in Manhattan?
when the PATH system was initially designed, it was designed to IRT standards in case they ever decided to merge the two systems.
the new path fleet is going to be slightly updated r142 cars possably in case the systems are inegated.