HOBOKEN — Hoboken officials last week strongly criticized a recent PATH train schedule change that reduced rush hour service on the Hoboken-33rd Street route by 14 percent. The service adjustments, unannounced by the Port Authority and first publicized by Mayor Dawn Zimmer on Tuesday, eliminate five trains departing Hoboken during morning rush hour and three trains during the evening rush hour, according to the city.
Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye confirmed the new schedule in a letter to Zimmer this past Tuesday. He said the interval between trains along the Hoboken-33rd line had increased from six to seven minutes on weekdays between approximately 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. The changes went into effect on April 26.
Hoboken officials said that late evening weekday service had also been decreased from 11 to 9 trains, a change Foye denied. Weekday overnight service – which became a hot button issue earlier this year after a Port Authority panel recommended cutting it altogether as a cost-saving measure – was not affected.
According to Foye, “Train frequency was adjusted to accommodate station and platform crowding at certain other stations on our system.”
The reductions amount to a decrease from 19 to 14 trains passing through the Hoboken PATH station during morning rush hour and from 24 to 21 trains during the evening rush hour, according to the city.
Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said that train frequency on the Hoboken-33rd route had been decreased to increase train frequency on the Journal Square-33rd Street route during rush hour.
On Wednesday, the City Council unanimously passed an emergency resolution expressing its opposition to the PATH service reduction.
Unfortunately for Occhipinti and Hoboken commuters in general, Port Authority representatives said that train frequency cannot be simultaneously increased on both the Jersey City and Hoboken PATH lines, regardless of how many additional trains are purchased.
According to Coleman, the Port Authority spokesman, trains departing Hoboken and Journal Square en route to 33rd Street share the same tunnel once they dip beneath the Hudson River, and only a finite number of trains can pass through the tunnel every hour.
“The issue here is not procuring more trains,” said Coleman. “The issue is that the system can only accommodate so many trains per hour and we are at max capacity now.
With this bottleneck in place, he said, Port Authority’s only real choice short of digging a new tunnel is deciding which line to give fractionally higher train frequency, either Hoboken or Jersey City.
Hoboken officials like Zimmer argue that their line should be favored because the Hoboken PATH station saw the largest percentage increase in average weekday ridership of any PATH station in New Jersey between 2012 and 2014, at 11.32 percent.
Port Authority officials say the crowding issues on the Journal Square-33rd Street line are significantly worse than they are in Hoboken.
To read more about this story, pick up this weekend’s Hoboken Reporter newspaper around town or go to hudsonreporter.com starting Sunday.
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