Mount Arlington Station

7-12?? even metropark, montclair and ramsey aren't that high..how has traffic been the last 2 days with this service? if there were weekend and hourly service to this area, then a parking garage would be needed

let me get this straight....a station that has been open less than a week on a line with less than hourly service (overall) should get a parking garage.....

........meanwhile waiting lists for permits on the coast line are many years long in many cases, and daily parking is at a premium, or at least very expensive where available, in particular Middletown, with 7 dollar daily parking fees.

IMO matawan should have a parking garage built asap. but i doubt anything will be done because of the stalled transit village/war inbetween Aberdeen and Matawan.....

also, as a side note....they are once again parking on the ground at hamilton...the garage has been open about a year now and id assume that its filling up and ground parking is required again

Jtgshu wrote: also, as a side note....they are once again parking on the ground at hamilton...the garage has been open about a year now and id assume that its filling up and ground parking is required again

Assumption is correct. Last Friday (early afternoon) I parked in the garage (six dollars), but on my previous visit the garage was full and I was directed to surface parking.

jtgshu, It doesn't have to be built now but as parking will run out something needs to be done. Compared to other stations Montclair is out in the middle of now where. I've also stated that when the line will be electrified to PM and service to Lake Hopatcong and Mt Arlington is like between Dover-NYP w weekend service then the lace will fill up. I also said it can be between 7-12 stories. Not a definant 12 story garage. If the other towns can't build their garages due to some petty rivalry then it sucks to be them. Why should Mt Arlington be put on the back burner so that a bunch of other towns who took too long to build finally catch up and get with the program?

In Mt Arlington there are no NIMBYs holding up the works or some greedy council people blocking you so why not build a project that has no opposion that's ready to go now instead of wasting years battling some NIMBY strong hold with an overzealous town council placing one hurdle after the next. Wasting time like that and nothing gets built because an agency is stuck on one project. Move one and when the NIMBYS are gone then come back to where you left off and then start but not at the expense of other towns that wanted something built yesterday.

Its not necessarily a matter of wanting a garage, its a matter of nEEDING a garage. If the elected officals in Mt. Arlington want to build a garage, let them. But if NJT and the state/Feds are going to contribute any $$$$$ to the endeavor, it better be a worth while investment, where its NEEDED NOW, not two, five, ten or twenty years down the road. Too many scarce dollars were for lack of a better word WASTED on the MSU, and Ramsey Rt. 17 station parking garages that could have been better spent elsewhere.

There are many other stations all over the system that have much more dreadful parking situations than at Mt. Arlington. Most places first deal wtih parking issues by starting to charge to park (oh the HORROR!!!) and then the fees increase as it gets mroe and more crowded to try to solve the problem of not enough parking. Then it becomes a shell game with people just going to different stations just to get parking spaces and paying the least amount of $$$$ for them.

Maybe if every station that has a parking problem gets re-named into a "park and ride" station, things will happen..........

The current parking lot should be able to accommodate growth over the next 1-2 years. From what I was told the current parking lot has 228 spaces. Approximate bus ridership is 100 per day, carpoolers take another 20-40 spaces.

As originally planned the lot would have had potentially 800+ surface spaces, but the existing lot can not be expanded east because the property is under Green Acres (NJDEP) control. Current parking lot is owned by NJDOT.

They are looking to provide additional spaces in the short term, which will accommodate ridership projections for 15 years.

Much to my surprise existing surface lots are costing NJT approximate $15,000 per space. Parking structure costs have skyrocketed well beyond $20,000 per space due to increased price of materials. Installing a deck at this location would mean users would have to be charged a fee that would be so high that they would be discouraged from using the service.

I can't reveal my source or go into further detail about where the additional parking may be.

since i started this thread..i'll finish it up..its open now! Nice..I think this should be removed

Does anyone have any idea how much use this station is getting? i'm very disappointed with the station. There's no electrification and worst of all, there's no weekend service!. I was looking forward to weekend service. It completely useless to me right now.

I drive past there each morning I head to Marcal. I have seen a total of 1 person on the platform since opening day. 1 person. And that person was there on opening day and probably posts on this forum.

If the wires ever get to PM, and if NJT can do better than a snail's pace across the Great State, that will change...

Of course if the Lakeland strike materializes...you'll see more than just 1 person there thats for sure

I hope they do strike. We won't get more rail improvements without some kind of stimulus such as gas shortage or even this strike.

Dangerous-Boy wrote:I hope they do strike. We won't get more rail improvements without some kind of stimulus such as gas shortage or even this strike.

What kind of improvements you looking for?? If your looking for electric service to Port Morris you'll probably have to wait a long time.

Not a whole lot of time. With all the bi level train sets comming in the Dover Yard is bursting at the seams. So electrification to PM Yard is key to fit all of the new train sets. Also the other thing they can do is fast track the Cutoff Project that should've come on line 5-10 years ago instead of 2012 or later.

I hope Lakeland does go on strike considering that we can get more people on the trains in Mt Arlington, Dover, Denville and even the surrounding towns. As for gas the oil companies are as usual greedy beyond belief so as usual gas prices will rise. Wether it's Exxon Valdez or sticking it to us with the high fuel prices the oil comapnies are more greedier them the American Media, American Politicians and those oil rich sheiks at OPEC put together.

I drive past this station regularly and if the figures above are correct as to how much of the lot is being used by bus and car-pool people then a significant number of people must be taking the train. The lot is full or near full most days.

To me the simplest solution is to expand parking into the former Hercules lot on the other side of the right of way. It's not huge but neither is it small. A cheap path could walk people around to the current entrance, some more work could connect on the backside. Looking quickly driving past it looks like there's a ditch or other change in elevation between the lot and the back-side of the station some coming directly in that way, while preferable, might be more expensive requiring a pedestrian bridge.

The snag may be Hercules being unwilling to grant access or not want to break up the huge block of land though I've seen no plans to actually develop anything there.

I hope stories like these on this thread indicate that NJT is actually building for the future.