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cass
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a direct* and simple* guide to rail in the NYC metro area

ah, new york city. the big apple, the financial core of the united states, the greatest city on planet earth.[citation needed] most importantly, though, it's also the public transit capital of north america! did you know that the new york city metropolitan area has nine different local modes of rail-based transportation? nine! that's a ridiculous amount, and they're not even owned by the same entities, and they're often not even operated by the entities that own them, and sometimes the entities that own some transit services operate others? it's a mess! the goal of this post is to hopefully explain the fundamentals of the various kinds of rail transit in new york city and the surrounding area, and shine a bit of a light on the more confusing aspects... as well as complain a bit about somethings. i can't help it.

ok, so, what are the different rail systems?


glad you asked! there are the following! (official public names, not legal names, which are different)0

  • the New York City Subway, which is exactly what you'd expect. the train system dating back to the late 1800s that runs exclusively within the city limits.
  • Metro-North, which is a commuter rail service running throughout new york and parts of connecticut. also technically new jersey, sort of, not really? we'll get there.
  • the Long Island Rail Road, space in "railroad" included, is a commuter rail service runs throughout, well, all of long island. at some point at the end of this year, presumably, it will also run to a part of manhattan as well, but, uh, we'll see.
  • the Port Authority Trans-Hudson, or PATH, is a rapid transit system1 that, as you might guess, crosses the hudson! it runs in manhattan and new jersey.
  • NJ Transit Rail Operations, jeez that's a mouthful, is a commuter rail service that runs throughout all of new jersey, and also new york, but again, see above where i said that we would get there.
  • the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, or HBLR, is a light rail service that runs exclusively in hudson county, new jersey. what, did you think it also ran in nearby bergen county? don't be silly.
  • the Newark Light Rail, which is a light rail service that runs in newark, new jersey. thankfully that one's simple.
  • the JFK Airtrain-- no, sorry, AirTrain JFK, is a "people mover" system in and around JFK airport.
  • AirTrain Newark, sigh, is the same but for newark airport.

okay, that was a lot. i know. thankfully, we can put all of these systems into simple categories based on who owns them that will totally not have any issues at all.

  • the NYC subway, alongside the LIRR and metro-north, are owned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA. they're a public benefit corporation2 that manages pretty much all of new york city's public transit.
  • the PATH is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, or PANYNJ, or just the port authority if you value your time. they also own both the airtrains, since they own3 the airports as well!
  • the HBLR and the newark light rail are operated by NJ Transit, which also has its rail operations as mentioned earlier. no, the HBLR and the newark light rail do not fall under the rail operations. for some reason.

(here's a chart to help recap.)

(NJ transit does iconography for individual lines, but not for its commuter rail services as a whole, so i made one up. i did not try very hard.)

okay! so that's it, right? that's the guide? there are these three authorities that own the nine regional rail-based transit sytems? there are no weird cases of overlap?

nope! see, the above post is actually a lie in several places. can you guess which ones?

...

if one of the things you guessed was "the MTA doesn't actually own the subway," you'd be right! if you also guessed "there's some verbal ambiguity in terms of who 'owns' the services run by NJ Transit in the state of new york,") you'd also be right, but i kind of hinted at that one, so you only get half points. there's also other stuff, but i'm sort of getting ahead of myself?

ultimately, most of the complication here comes down to owners versus operators. you see, the majority of the entities and systems listed above are, like, actually over a hundred years old, and in those cases were not originally publicly owned. the new york city subway, for example, used to be two privately owned systems and one publicly owned one,4 and so when nationalization of these private rail services started occuring, it often happened in a slapdash, uneven way, resulting in awkardly shaped agreements and business structures. this means that one publicly funded and maintained organization might run things in the other's stead.

a simple example of this is the MTA operating the subway. technically, the City of New York owns it, but it allows the MTA, a state corporation, to run it. this is why funding issues usually come down to the governor of new york, rather than the mayor or city council. another easy example is the metro-north lines west of the hudson river. because they run through new jersey, the MTA pays NJ transit to run them on MTA-owned tracks!

...wait, they are MTA-owned, right? right?

well, some of them! y'see, most public rail services are actually not entirely public. a lot of the rail is shared with freight companies that allow public services access for a price. this is true of a lot of the services i just mentioned. often times, these private companies are able to exert influence on pricing, too, which is why commuter rail costs in these places can get a little pricey.

okay, so that was a fun little detour. here's the REAL chart. for realsies this time.

...right, sorry, i forgot to mention that the newark light rail is for some reason part of new jersey transit's bus division. that was the last thing. we're done now.

JUST KIDDING IT'S TIME TO TALK ABOUT PRIVATELY OPERATED PUBLIC RAIL SERVICES

SO. for whatever reason, PANYNJ and NJ transit like to contract private corporations to operate some of their services. though the PATH is run by a subsidiary of the port authority, both the AirTrains:tm: are operated by Bombardier--or, sorry, some french company called Alstom, now-- in the port authority's stead. this is actually a pretty reasonable decision, at least relatively speaking, because bombardier is a pretty common railway equipment manufacturer for trains in the area. 5

what isn't reasonable, though, is the operation of the HBLR. you see, new jersey transit decided to lease out the operations to two different corprations. one is Kinki Sharyo, a japanese rail operator with a tons of clients in the united states. a reasonable choice, if you're going to go private. the other, though, is AECOM, a multinational infrastructure firm with almost zero experience in rail. together these groups are Twenty-First Century Rail, a partnership that, when googled, immediately brings up a National Labor Board dispute, as well as a permanently closed address in some decrepit business park??? oh my god??6

okay. fine. we're done for real. right?

*a distant voice in the background can be heard, saying "what about the complicated rail agreements between amtrak and freight companies with basically every commuter rail service"*

...you know what. i don't care. my point has been illustrated: what should be a simple, unified rail system is instead a nightmarish blend of public and private systems that is difficult to follow, resulting in several different fare systems, money going to freight companies, and all sorts of mismanagement. here's your final chart illustrating more or less the whole thing.

a chart more or less describing the above. it's kind of a mess.

so there you have it! that's the whole thing. all the modes of rail transit in the NYC area. you might be curious, though, How The Fuck Did This Happen? Why Is It Like This? How Does This Tie Into The Rampant Corruption And Overspending That Defines New York State's Transportation System?

okay, i don't think you're asking that third question unless you already know that i plan on answering that question in the future BUT. over the following weeks i will be releasing a series of casual pseudo-essays exploring the finances and particulars of transit in the area. look forward to that :3


0 i'm going to be using public names instead of legal names throughout this whole post, as the legal names are lengthy and at times unrecognizable. also yes i did go back and make this footnote later which is why it's zero. don't judge me
1 yeah i don't necessarily agree with this classification. what exactly defines a rapid transit system compared to commuter rail is complicated, and is going to need its own post. i'll get there eventually.
2 long story short, a corporation established by the state to provide public services. the primary reason for doing this is to avoid constitutional caps on allowed state debt; it's a very flawed system that i'm also not very fond of. look forward to a whole post about it in a couple weeks.
3 technically they lease them from their respective cities, but that's not an important distinction here. i mean ok if you've read the rest of this you know what "ownership" means is actually central to the post but i'm not TALKING about the airports so i don't CARE
4 another post to maybe make in the future. really setting myself up for a full goddamn series here
5 i prefer kawasaki but whateverrrr
6 there was a whole rail walkout in new jersey that i think partially had to do with their mismanagement but to be honest there's not enough easily accessible information on this for me to be able to comment further


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