Dan Stessel Quotations

We greatly appreciate the support of New Jersey's congressional delegation, particularly Senators Lautenberg and Menendez, who were instrumental in delivering this funding.

Since there were two trains in one, they had to make double stops.

Obviously there is concern about federal support to ensure they have the resources to keep the line in a state of good repair.

For residents of these densely populated communities, the light rail will provide unprecedented mobility and convenience. This is a huge day for Union City, West New York and North Bergen.

Had it not been replenished or reformed by the governor, we would not have been able to proceed.

The purpose is to reduce the chance that somebody would be tempted to take an illegal or ill-advised shortcut across the railroad tracks.

It becomes a manual process with heavy radio traffic. It's slow, methodical, and reduces capacity to a fraction.

It is a $23 million project divided into three phases, and it is currently in the second phase. We are currently doing work on the eastern end of the platform, and Phase II will be completed this fall. Phase III will shift to the west end and will be six months in duration. The entire project will be completed by next spring.

Most of the cars are on their side.

We recently had a fare increase, and so even with the cost of gas being what it is lately, I do not foresee a raise in our rates.

Travel right now is treacherous in many areas of the state, and it looks like it will remain that way for some time.

We build for the future. We wouldn't want it to be at its capacity at the end of the first or second or even fifth year.

There have been some intermittent improvements over the years, but the station has, over time, experienced deterioration to its concrete passenger platform. We have conducted annual inspections that revealed water infiltration and the effect of salt corrosion.

There has not been anything systemic that we can point to or work to rectify in any meaningful way, which has been part of the challenge. I almost wish I could point to something.

What could be a single relatively minor problem for one train can wind up affecting the entire morning service for all the trains behind it, because there's no way to work around it.

There's no common thread to the delays. We understand the customers' reaction to the delays. We are working diligently to correct the problems.

The shelters will have push-button, on-demand heating. On cold winter days, customers will be able to push a button and heat will come on in the shelters. Two additional ticket vending machines will be installed. The main station building is also being redone with a larger waiting area, and will be open 24 hours.

Normally there is a diversion of 2 to 3 percent. Instead we saw an increase. We bucked the trend and swung to get 5 percent.

Some (drivers) have opted to switch to public transportation, and we're working to welcome them to the system.

No way. At this stage in the game, it's like asking, 'Why not a sky-tram?' It's not in a let's-dream-about-it phase. This is not a theoretical exercise. The Tunnel is actually going to happen.

This could not have happened at a more unfortunate time.

It was down slightly as some customers decided to work from home or take days off, which is what we expected. And we've seen that in the past during other disruptions in New York. Many New Jersey customers opted to stay home, to sit it out.

It's a first step. It's not a total shutdown.

It's an incredible and complex project that is nothing short of an engineering marvel.

It's remarkable to see all this come together. We expect this to be one of the busiest stations in the system.

It'll be a daily service and much more frequent.

It's difficult to attribute that to a single factor; the high cost of gas would have something to do with it. More importantly is the additional service.

They could go higher, and that number could change. Obviously, this has the potential to become a problem.

In that phase, we will be providing bus shuttle service from a nearby accessible station for customers with disabilities. The existing elevator shaft will be preserved, meaning the elevator will remain in its current location when the project is completed.

I don't know how many 'No Smoking' signs we already had - a lot - but we put up 800 more throughout our system before the law went into effect.

By all means, they shouldn't be on the roadway. It's dangerous.

The goal is to encourage students to try NJ Transit as their primary mode of transportation and hopefully stick with it when they enter the workforce.