The third-busiest commuter system in the country, New Jersey Transit has been operating without an executive director for nearly a year, its board of directors has not met for three months and it has not explained how it will close a $45 million gap in its budget this year. Last month, two of its buses collided in downtown Newark, leaving two people dead.
The cause of the fatal train crash has not been determined. But whether it proves to have been a case of human error or of mechanical failure, it is sure to focus more attention on a transit agency that has been operating in secrecy.
New Jersey Transit’s management “has been told to go into a bear cave and disappear until told to come back out,” said Martin E. Robins, a former deputy executive director of the agency. “We don’t know anything about what’s going on.”
Mr. Robins, who has been a critic of the agency in recent years, said he could not recall its board suspending monthly public meetings before this year. It has done so since June, when New Jersey Transit’s interim management grappled with a state budget that left the agency about $45 million short of what it needed to operate this year.
Since then, Gov. Chris Christie and legislative leaders have failed to reach an agreement on an increase in New Jersey’s gas tax that would have replenished the state’s Transportation Trust Fund. That fund, which nearly ran dry this summer, provided more than one-fifth of New Jersey Transit’s annual budget. In July, Mr. Christie ordered the suspension of all highway and transit projects paid for by the trust fund.
