After years of political wrangling, the Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station in Secaucus finally has the one feature that prevented it from reaching its potential as a viable transit hub: parking.
State officials, including Governor Jon Corzine and U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg – who the station is named after – last Monday inaugurated a new 1,100-space parking lot with a ceremony held at the station.
Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, New Jersey Assembly Representatives Vincent Prieto and Joan Quigley, and Congressman Steven Rothman also attended the event.
The Edison Park & Ride is being touted as a key ingredient to bringing more business to this region.
“This park and ride facility is critical to bringing economic growth and jobs to this region,” Lautenberg told The Reporter after the event. “For one thing, it’s going to get drivers off the Turnpike. Drivers will now be able to get off at Exit 15X, park here at the station, and use mass transit to get to their destination, either in New York or elsewhere in New Jersey. I think it’s obvious, when drivers aren’t stuck in Turnpike traffic for hours it improves attitudes about our state. So, we think we’ll be able to attract more business here as a result.”
According to Lautenberg, New Jersey workers are the third highest users of public transportation in the country.
Despite being a major transportation hub that connects New Jersey Transit’s Pascack Valley and Bergen County rail lines to New York City, the station has been underutilized, critics have argued, due to a lack of parking at the station, near Exit 15X on the Turnpike. Similarly, this exit was among the least used on the turnpike, transportation experts claim, due to the lack of parking.
The $600 million station opened in December 2003 but had less than 6,000 riders daily a year later. By comparison, Newark’s Penn Station gets about 12,000 passengers a day. The new parking lot is expected to increase daily use of the station by 11,000 new passengers.
Eventually the rail station is expected to be a main transfer point for visitors and employees traveling to Xanadu and the Meadowlands Sports Complex in nearby East Rutherford. And the Meadowlands rail link, scheduled to open this summer and which will stop at Lautenberg Station, could add another 10,000 to 12,000 trips to the system.
The station will also see increased use from the Access to the Region’s Core – or ARC – project, the planned express train service from New Jersey to Penn Station in Manhattan.
Local opposition delayed parking
Opposition to a parking facility at the rail station from elected officials in Secaucus had initially delayed construction of a lot. In 2006 Mayor Elwell opposed plans to build a 3,600 to 4,300 car garage near the station.
“My argument was, before we allow a parking garage that large, it would be better to see the impact that 1,100 cars has on traffic in the area first,” the mayor said last week.
He later changed his position after parking plans at the station were modified.
“There were always a lot of permitting issues that stood in the way and some people thought [a parking facility] was going to generate more traffic and therefore be a burden on the local community,” Corzine told The Reporter. “I think time has shown that the local community wants to use the station and can benefit from parking, just like at every other train station location throughout New Jersey.”
The governor added that drivers will now be less likely to use Secaucus streets as a “back door to the Lincoln Tunnel” as they try to avoid delays on the Turnpike. He said he expects the increased train ridership to reduce pollution from car emissions by 30 percent.
Future plans
The new parking facility, which is a surface style lot, rather than a parking tower, is owned and operated by Newark-based Edison Properties, a privately-held real estate business that runs 36 other lots in New York, Baltimore, and Newark.
Edison received approval for the six-acre lot from the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC), which has zoning jurisdiction over 88 percent of land in Secaucus, last spring. At the time the NJMC granted Edison approval for an interim use facility. This interim use permit expires in seven years and gives the Town of Secaucus and state officials time to assess the parking lot’s impact on the community. Depending on this assessment, additional parking may or may not be approved in the future.
“In the near term,” said Edison CFO Drew Fletcher, “[our] Park & Ride project will test market demand for parking and, based on that, Edison and others will determine how much parking is needed to support the station as the region grows.”
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.