New Jersey Transit & The Acknowledgment I Yearn to Hear

When you sit on a New Jersey Transit train and absorb hours of delays multiple times a week in your daily commute, you can’t help but wonder — “what does the leadership team think?” What are the range of emotions of the people that ultimately call the shots at New Jersey Transit think of this clear dysfunction commuters are experiencing daily? Frustration? Embarrassment? Anger?

Well, I have no idea. I can’t recall a single message taking ownership over the dysfunction or a meaningful apology from New Jersey Transit leadership. I’ve heard plenty of excuses in the local media coverage — but not a single ounce of “you deserve better.”

So, given that they haven’t prioritized engaging with riders, I went ahead and drafted one for them. Heck, I had a few hours to kill sitting on the stalled train.

Dear Valued Riders,

On behalf of the leadership team at New Jersey Transit, we want to extend our deepest and sincerest apologies for the service delays and cancellations that have been affecting your lives. We fully understand that our disruptions have caused significant hardships, making you miss critical moments — job interviews, childcare pick-ups, coaching commitments, dance recitals, visiting hours, graduations — the list goes on. These moments are precious and often irreplaceable, and it deeply pains us to know that we have let you down in such vital aspects of your lives. In a world where the currency of time is so crucial to our well being, we recognize our ongoing train disruptions and delays must be having an adverse impact on your life.

The challenges we face with our infrastructure at New Jersey Transit are immense and have been building up for decades. These issues are complicated and require substantial time and resources to address. However, simply acknowledging these long-standing problems does not excuse us from our duty to keep you informed. You deserve clear, timely communication, and we have fallen short in providing that. We are truly sorry for this failure.

We understand the frustration and anger you must feel, especially given the frequency of the disruptions and the lack of clear communication around them. Our microphones on the trains are often muffled at best, we lack sufficient push notification technology on the app to alert you with updates and we are still accustomed to using vague technical language like “overhead wires” or “switch problems” or “signal issues” as excuses when they average person wouldn’t even know what this actually means. It’s also not lost on us that we have also recently approved raising our rates while the quality of service has been declining.

While there are so many things not in our control, we have completely dropped the ball on the things we can control like communication and a sense of empathy with our ridership. This is not acceptable, and we take full responsibility for this situation. Our front-line staff, including conductors, are working tirelessly under challenging conditions, often facing your justified frustrations firsthand. They are not to blame; the responsibility lies with the leadership team here at NJ Transit.

To address these issues, we are committed to significantly improving our communication with you. These efforts include:

/ integrating a more robust custom alert system into our ticketing app, which will provide better real-time updates about service disruptions with a specific effort to alert you immediately.

/ providing a more robust “on the ground” staff presence in the terminals who can provide you with more direct support.

/ collaborating with other local government organizations to better communicate travel alternatives for when we do have disruptions along with known planned construction work that might impact your alternative commute (i.e., road closures, etc.). We have the data and information — we need to better apply better tools to disseminate information to help your commute through the disruptions.

/ providing an ongoing report card of our on-time performance for all to see. If we don’t acknowledge the problems, we are not being fair or honest with our ridership.

/ providing more communication directly from the leadership team here at New Jersey Transit when we experience major outages. Hearing stories of commuters facing over an hour delay on both sides of their daily commute can not be normalized. You deserve, at a minimum, an acknowledgment and explanation.

/ and, yes, we are considering proposals that would reimburse your fare for our lack of performance. It’s not reasonable to raise your fares and at the same time provide inadequate service. We recognize this must feel like a burning salt on the wound.

Overall, our goal moving forward is to give you as much advance notice as possible when there are disruptions in the system allowing you to make informed decisions and plan accordingly. While we may not be able to solve all the infrastructure problems overnight, we can and must do better in how we communicate with you.

We remain optimistic in our future given its painfully obvious we need to address some of the most critical infrastructure problems we face. Government officials will continue to fight over who and how it will get paid for, but we remain optimistic and are committed to securing the necessary funding to get New Jersey Transit to a better place. This will be a step in the right direction, but I know it will take time before you see the full benefits of these improvements. We are dedicated to making NJ Transit a service you can rely on. We are optimistic about the future, but also understand that right now, you need more than promises — you need immediate improvements in communication and transparency.

We want to emphasize that empathy is at the core of our renewed approach. We are fully aware of the frustrations you face and the significant impact our service disruptions have on your lives. You have every right to be upset, and for that, we are deeply sorry. We promise to do everything in our power to regain your trust by being more open, communicative, and responsive to your needs.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we navigate these challenges. Your feedback is crucial, and we encourage you to continue sharing your experiences and suggestions. We are committed to making NJ Transit a service that meets your needs and earns your trust.

With heartfelt apologies,

The Leadership Team of New Jersey Transit