NJ Transit
reviews and complaints

I have trouble with NJ Transit buses all the time but on March 15 as I waited for a bus (the line is 986, the time it was supposed to stop was 6:10), it finally showed up 30 minutes late but due to being late, it simply flew past the stop and didn't pick me up. As it was the LAST BUS on this route, it left me completely stranded.

I was a passenger aboard the train number 7853 on the 13th of March 2010. The train was scheduled to depart New York Penn Station at 3:15 PM and reach New Brunswick at 4:15 PM. The train ride till Newark Penn Station was uneventful, although it was pouring outside. Between Newark and the Liberty Airport, the first phase of the trouble began. The train was stopped right outside Newark and we were told that no train signals were available for the train to move forward. This went on for 3 long hours. We would see the train crew members walking by once in a while. They would stop to answer questions if a concerned passenger stopped them. There were some people on the train who were supposed to get off at the airport to board a flight. Needless to say they missed them. These passengers were on the phone with the airport authorities tirelessly trying to explain their situation. Between 6:15 and 6:30PM, the train moved and it was met by loud cheers and cries of relief from all passengers. I called my husband immediately because he was getting frantic with worry. When Rahway came, I called up my husband again to let him know that he could leave now to pick me up from New Brunswick. The ride to New Brunswick from Rahway takes 15-20 minutes, the same as the drive from our home to New Brunswick train station.

But the relief was short-lived. The train stopped again just outside Rahway and literally minutes from Metropark. It was 7:00 PM by now. For some time, we kept hearing the train crew announcing on the PA system that they were having signal problems and we would be moving shortly. Within one hour the train lost electricity. The faint emergency lights were on and it was getting colder with the heating switched off. The train had also been leaking in places and added to the dampness. I called up my husband yet again to let him know that the train was still between Rahway and Metropark. He on the other hand was facing his own set of weather related problems. New Brunswick town had no electricity either and there was flooding everywhere. Route 1 was delayed with accidents. In short it was really tough for him to get to New Brunswick train station. He decided that he would drive to Metropark train station and get me there because the train showed no signs of moving and would take ages to get to New Brunswick. I also asked him to speak to an NJTransit employee once he got to Metropark train station, since none of the train crew members could be seen for quite some time now.

Somewhere around 7:45, a train crew member or the driver announced that the train would be taken back to Rahway because there were some passengers left there! All passengers including me were aghast. It seemed as though the train had taken ages to get to where it was and now they were proposing to go back. I called up my husband yet again to let him know that he would now need to trek to Rahway from Metropark train station. He was livid by then and with good reason. When he had walked into the Metropark train station some minutes back to find out what was happening, the NJ transit employee manning the ticket counter was extraordinarily rude to him. When my husband voiced his concerns regarding his wife being on a train for 6 hours now, she rudely replied, "Your wife is not the only one on the train". My husband told her that she wasn't the only one, but as a paying customer he had a right to know about the safety of his family member aboard an NJTransit train. This was met with further rude comments by the NJTransit employee who said that she wasn't obliged to tell us anything. My husband walked out of the train station feeling more frustrated than ever. After talking to me he just decided to drive to Rahway hoping that he might get me there.

Meanwhile, passengers on the train started looking for the train crew to get some kind of an update on what was happening. And to our dismay, we discover that there are no train members left on the train! It was apparent that they had decided to get off at Rahway and leave the passengers to their fate! Now the panic level rose considerably. Most of us had mobiles whose battery had died due to constantly being on the phone with our family to let them know of the train's progress. I was now worried that my husband would be trying to get to Rahway with the horrible weather and would then discover that the train wasn't there either. It was 9:00 PM now and everybody on the train was tired, thirsty, hungry and cold. Suddenly a few people from the front of the train came towards the back where I was and told us that a lot of the passengers were getting of the train and walking to a nearby diner. From the window I could see that the Galaxy Diner and cafe was close. I asked these people in general, where was the open door from which the people were getting off. Nobody answered and all passengers in our compartment decided to walk to where people where getting off. And then I got to the biggest shock of the whole evening! There was no door open anywhere. Since the train crew was missing the passengers had decided to take matters in their own hands and risk life and limb to get off this wretched train.

The vestibule between compartments, on a single decker train has a narrow opening where the 2 compartments are linked. People were climbing out of that narrow space with little to hold onto and jumping onto the tracks that were laden with rocks. To make matters even worse, the train was on perched precariously on an incline and once you jumped of the narrow space, you could tumble down and land on a busy road that had moving traffic! To me that seemed like a very dangerous and foolish thing to do. And I decided to take my chances with the train and stay on it, even though it was getting colder and I was practically shivering by now. What also worried me was the fact that a lot of women I had been speaking to were getting of the train now because they had little children at home waiting for them. The men, even the ones dressed in expensive suits decided to jump from the train into the rain and walk down a mulchy slope to get to the diner. Only the passengers who were either too old or too heavy to get past the narrow space were now left behind.

The deciding factor for me was when a man came running from the back of the train saying that all his stuff was stolen and he is now looking for it. That seemed like the last straw to me. With the help of a kind fellow passenger I decided to jump. As I maneuvered myself into the narrow space and prepared to jump off the narrow ledge, I faced a moment of sheer fear when I looked back over my shoulder to the running traffic and the slope on which I could be falling down in the very next second. But when I looked back to the dark interiors of the train, my decision was made. I jumped and to my utmost relief landed on my feet. I took my handbag from the fellow passenger who had been helping me and decided to run to the Diner. But to my dismay, the first step onto the slop had my shoe sinking into wet and slippery mud almost till my mid calf. I stepped back in horror. But my fellow passenger who had helped me climb down came to my rescue yet again. He was escorting his old uncle down the slope who had been aboard the train too. He saw me struggling and yelled that he would come back for me. He escorted me down the slope and then went back for another woman who was struggling to get down as well.

As soon as I reached the pavement, I thanked him profusely and ran to the safety of the diner. When I got in, I saw that half of the train passengers were there and all of them were wet, muddy but ridiculously happy to get off the train ride from hell. I used the phone at the diner to call my husband and let him know where I was. He arrived in 10 minutes and we literally hugged each other. We decided to sit down in the diner and get a get something to eat because the driving conditions outside were abominable. When we walked out at 10:45 PM to drive back home, we could still see the train still stranded there, dark and abandoned. And I wondered in horror if there were people still inside it.

Sunday morning, I woke to my left wrist hurting and realized that I had hurt it while holding onto a chain before jumping and putting all my body weight on it. I am happy that my husband and made it back safely but I am annoyed at NJTransit for putting 500 people through this. To begin with the storm warnings had been out for quite some time. If they thought that the trains and the infrastructure were not resilient enough to deal with the weather then they should have canceled the trains (because that happens quite on regular days too with the NJTransit). They risked so many lives by being negligent. Secondly the train crew holds a fiduciary responsibility to the passengers. They are entrusted with the well-being and the safety of the passengers. They showed utter cowardice by disappearing from the train when the conditions got rough. Where were they when passengers were jumping from the train? Moreover, the statement issued by the NJTransit spokesperson on Sunday is incorrect and incomplete. It does not describe the entire incident. To conclude, I hope that some day NJTransit employees will realize that they are in the service industry and will begin to behave accordingly.

NJ Transit is by far the very worst rail service in the entire world. I remember overhearing two Indian riders talking about how much better the rail systems in India are. That should be a joke but its actually the truth. I ride from Jersey Avenue to New York City. They advertise that it takes 54 minutes to get there as it is an express train. I cannot remember one time in the last month that it actually arrived on time. The train is almost always 20 minutes late if there are no mechanical issues. When there are mechanical issues you can just forget it. It is clear that proper maintainance of the equipment is not performed as the trains almost always have issues with doors closing when they shouldn't or staying open or lights not turning off or on to signal that all the doors are closed. When they have issues the crew does try to explain what the delay is over the loudspeaker. Unfortunately most of the train cars do not have a working loudspeaker so all you can make out is gibberish. Some of the crew are nice but alot of them are rude and yell at passengers when it comes time to collect tickets. Basically NJ transit is a joke and everyone who is forced to ride on it is the butt of that joke.

Be advised, I am extremely irritated and offended that after riding NJ transit for 5 years, and paying the approximately $250 a month to travel between Madison and NYC every day, the service remains so terrible. This evening's problem only heightens that feeling.

As the train pulled into Madison this evening (the 654 out of NYC) the doors in the very center of the train, which WERE on the platform, suddenly slammed shut while several women in front of me tried to disembark. They did not open for at least 15 seconds, so not wanting to miss my stop, I walked ahead one car to try to get off there. Those doors were also closed.

There were absolutely NO conductors in sight. No one checked to see why the doors on 2 different cars in the CENTER of the train didn't open, and sure enough, the train pulled away and I missed my stop.

I am completely outraged that I was inconvenienced like this after a long day of work. I was taken all the way to the next town, Convent Station, where the waiting room is not even open after the morning. It was raining. As I'm sure you are aware, the trains run at a pathetic rate in the evenings. It's an outrageous waste of my time.

And as I left the train and expressed my outrage to the conductors, I was also quite alarmed that they did not even care. I do recall that a man died after getting stuck in a door that was unattended by conductors about a year or 2 ago. I can only imagine that such blatant disregard for the functionality of the equipment in this case can only contribute to such problems. Again these doors were on cars that did platform, and would have been right in front of the staircase in Madison. To disregard the fact that they had malfunctioned and allow passengers such as my self to be completely inconvenienced is unacceptable.

If you did not have a monopoly on the transit system in my area, I would most certainly NEVER give you my business again.

I don't imagine that anyone will even read this but I hope you remedy the situation.

Thursday, July 16, arrived at the Bordentown River Line station at 11:20, a.m. Train arrival times were 11:29 a.m. then 11:59 a.m. and then 12:25 p.m.

None of those three trains ever rolled into the station. By the time the third one didn't show, the platform was full of people.

I started to leave after standing there for an hour-and-a-half. As I left I saw a young man who couldn't be more than 25 years old wearing a "River Line T-Shirt."

I spoke to him: "That's the 3rd train that didn't show!"

He said: "Yeah there are a bunch of breakdowns today."

He was crouching and I looked for some piece of technical equipment or reading or something that he was doing and he didn't have any he was just crouching there watching the platform?

I said: "you should probably tell some of those people as they have been standing there in the heat for some time."

At that point his face broke out in amusement and I realized that he was purposely not telling them even though he had likely been directed to do it by his superiors. He was in short, committing an act of malice against strangers because he thought it was amusing. What he should of done was come out after the first train and told everyone.

The digital marquee display never displayed any information as to the breakdowns or to any matter of delay.

I feel that this young man should be disciplined for his behavior.

The 8:18 p.m. train from Middletown, N.J. to New York Penn Station arrived on time, but only the front doors opened. the conductor saw passengers running down the length of the track hollering for the train to wait, but gave the "all clear" signal and departed. Several passengers were left stranded on the platform in the rain waiting 70 minutes for the 9:31 train from Middletown, N.J. to New York Penn Station.The station is remote and not located near any restaurants or places to wait or find food.

The situation become worse when the 9:31 train experienced problems with it's brakes, which forced an extended delay. A conductor on that train sympathized with our plight and allowed us to ride for free.

To make matters worse, we were in New Jersey to attend my grandmother's funeral - a bad day turned worse.
It also threatened to jeopardize an job interview for one of the stranded passengers who said she has been laid off for four months and was hoping to get a good night's rest before the the interview.

To whom it may concern,

My name is Brian Szeto and I was boarding bus 163T from Port Authority Bus Terminal to Ridgewood, NJ on 2008/07/04 5:30pm, license plate number 0XX8242.

While my wife and I was waiting to board the bus, an NJ transit employee, who is a 6 ft tall, approx. 250lbs, African American, decided to block the bus entrance and let other passengers board the bus first. I politely asked him for an explanation but I did not receive a fair response from him, and he even told me to shut up. I was very upset and asked him what was he going to do. He then went on to use his big size (I'm only 5 ft 8 and 159 lbs) and used his back and violently pushed me into the glass wall behind me, leaving me with chest pain afterwards. He even tried to claim that I was trying to push him even though he was much bigger than I was. Eventually, my wife and I was finally able to board the bus on route to our journey. When we leave the bus, I politely asked the bus driver for his name and the name of the NJ Transit employee who pushed me. Unfortunately, he abruptly refused and claimed my wife was taking pictures of him, which she did not, and called NJ Transit dispatch. I was still feeling discomfort in my chest and became even more upset about the situation and decided to call 911. During the wait for the police, the driver made a racially offensive comment saying 'this is not China', which was also heard by other passengers onboard. The police and ambulance finally came to resolve the situation, and I had my chest and my overall health condition checked by the medical dispatcher.

I am very very upset about this situation and the terribly quality of service which NJ Transit provides to their customers. Worst of all, I never expected an NJ Transit employee would attack a customer and make racially offensive comments about their customers, which is very shocking to me. I, my family, and my friends will no longer feel safe while riding with NJ Transit as long as the employee involved in attacking me is still working for NJ Transit. Therefore I'm asking NJ Transit to promptly investigate into this matter on behalf of myself and my wife, and also on behalf of your company and your employees.

In closing, I hope NJ Transit will resolve the matter to my fullest satisfaction and also pay for any ambulance/medical fees caused by this incident. I will also reserve the right to further pursue this situation in a lawful manner until I feel this matter is fully resolved.