NJ Transit says it has contingency plan should engineers strike happen. Here are some options for riders.
NJ Transit held unsuccessful talks Wednesday with its unionized engineers, who are preparing to go on strike in the middle of May if they don't get a deal.
Though the negotiations have not yet brought the sides together, more talks are scheduled for next week.
NJ Transit's contingency plan
NJ Transit is telling riders to prepare for the worst. At the agency's emergency headquarters in Maplewood on Wednesday, officials offered a contingency plan in the event of a work stoppage. However, they said that plan would only help 20% of daily rail riders.
"We intend to take the current bus lines that exist and enhance them where appropriate and target our focus on New York City because 40% of our riders go to New York every day," NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said. "We will have four park-and-rides throughout the state that will have supplemental bus service to move people from Secaucus, Hamilton, Woodbridge and the PNC Center on the parkway."
Kolluri said essential workers are the priority.
"For those folks who can afford to work from home, should the strike become reality, we ask them to work from home," Kolluri said.
"I'm really on it for work, when I have to shoot photography in the city, because we do venues, parties, events. It is like my lifeline going into Manhattan," Stephen Blanco said.
Amtrak trains and ferries also an option.
NJ Transit officials say the best advice they can give to riders is to purchase daily tickets on their app and not buy a monthly pass.
What the engineers want
The trains could stop running on Friday, May 16 if members of the agency's engineers union don't get their way.
"At 12:01 a.m., any train that is currently on route, we would finish that trip, but once we're done, that's it. The engineers will leave the property," said Tom Haas, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
The contingency plan would take effect on Monday, May 19.
Salaries remain the sticking point in the negotiations. While NJ Transit says engineers make $135,000 per year, engineers say that number is actually $89,000.
"That was all engineers working six and seven days a week, sometimes twice a day," Haas said.
They want more.
"It's in the order of 20% or more of what we make," Haas said.
"A small group of people somehow say to the 9 million taxpayers of New Jersey that they are entitled to a $55,000 a year average pay raise. I will not let that happen," Kolluri said.
