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After four chaotic days of detours, delays and packed buses, Garden State commuters can finally breathe a sigh of relief: NJ Transit trains are back on track starting Tuesday, May 20.
NJ Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen announced late Sunday they’d reached a tentative agreement to end the strike, which began early Friday morning and brought rail service to a screeching halt across New Jersey and parts of New York state.
The sticking point? Wages. “We were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month,” BLET’s Tom Haas said in a statement, noting that the new deal also aims to help with engineer recruitment and retention, without triggering fare hikes.
While engineers returned to work Monday, NJ Transit used the day to inspect tracks, reposition trains and get everything back in sync before reopening the full schedule Tuesday morning (just in time for Beyoncé’s MetLife shows, ya-ya!). Until then, contingency bus service remains in place, including routes from Secaucus, Woodbridge, Hamilton and the PNC Bank Arts Center, with express service to Port Authority and PATH stations.
Commuters at park-and-ride stops across North Jersey had mixed feelings Monday. Some, like Ari Zweig from Ramsey, took the reroute in stride. “A little more inconvenient, but not terrible,” Zweig told NorthJersey.com while boarding a bus in Ridgewood. Others, like Melissa Summers in Secaucus, arrived expecting trains and found themselves scrambling. “Now I have to take the bus, which will obviously take more time. What a mess,” she told the outlet. NJ Transit encouraged remote work on Monday to reduce crowding, but many buses ran smoothly and with minimal traffic.
The tentative agreement still needs to be ratified by union members—votes are expected next month—and approved by NJ Transit’s board on June 11. But for now, the strike is officially over, and normal service resumes Tuesday. Time to trade your park-and-ride survival strategies for your usual seat on the Northeast Corridor.