8th Street opened on January 31, 2011 as a one station southern extension. The station is located in southern Bayonne just three-quarters of a mile from the entrance to the pedestrian sidewalk of the Bayonne Bridge. This makes it an easy walk from the station to Staten Island. A great undiscovered (you'll run into maybe two people) urban walk (2 total miles, mostly on the bridge) is taking the HBLR down here to 8th Street, walking over the Bayonne Bridge, taking the bus (S46 or S44) back to the Staten Island Ferry (and going for a ride on the Staten Island Railway as well). There have been proposals to extend the HBLR over the Bayonne Bridge and provide a new interstate connection, but the recently completed raising of the Bayonne Bridge project to allow larger ships to enter the Port of Elizabeth and Newark makes this more infeasible. There is one MTA bus route (it required a change in the legislation to allow it to operate), the S89 that began service in September 2007 over the Bayonne Bridge that connects the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail to Staten Island (during rush hours only). It connects to the 34th Street HBLR station, not 8th Street because that station has a large bus loop and direct access to Route 440, the road the Bayonne Bridge carries across. 8th Street is directly parallel to Route 440.
The extension from 22nd Street is a single grade separated track on a mostly elevated new concrete railway viaduct, alongside an existing freight rail branch that includes passing above a railroad yard north of the station. The extension is also single tracked (the only place on the HBLR that is single tracked) that poses operational constraints. During rush hours (in both directions) there are a number of trains that originate or terminate at 22 Street because of the single track.
The station itself is also elevated on a concrete viaduct and has two tracks. The switch onto the single track visible just north of the station. The terminal tracks continue on their elevated viaducts beyond the station, enough to provide temporary storage of a train of two LRVs on each track. The station is alongside an elevated freight track and the elevated Route 440 that is the access road to the Bayonne Bridge. These tracks have a single island platform. This platform is like all the others with a single, normal HBLR teal colored gable roofed canopy in the middle of the platform. The opaque glass windscreen in the middle of the canopy is colored white and yellow. This is part of Silver Stain and Light by Trevor Wilson. The northern end of the platform is a series of lampposts (and platform signs that seem taller then other stations), has an 'emergency pillar' and a staircase down to track level signed 'Area of Refuge' surrounded by a fence. The barriers along the edge of the tracks an elevated structure are not entirely your standard chain link fence, portions are squares of translucent glass.
To leave the platform passengers cross over at a pedestrian grade crossing over the north track at the Jersey City-bound end of the platform. This leads into the modern station. It is an open air building that houses the single staircase and elevator down to street level. This building is brand new but tries to evoke the original CNJ Bergen Point Station that this station is at the same location as. The building has arched entry ways, stone walls, and a tall gabled roof. The elevator shaft is disguised as a short steeple. Passengers leaving the platform first reach a bench beneath a sign that says 'waiting area' beneath the eaves of the building. Then they have the choice of a staircase or single elevator down to street level. The interior walls are decorated in a large mural Bayonne: Port of Homes and Industry by Richard Haas, the medium is Keim paint on cement. At street level the TVMs are on the first floor beneath a wing of the station's non-enclosed building. A few steps and a ramp continue down from the station to street level at Robert J. Burrows Plaza. There is a main, wide plaza lined with HBLR black double lampposts and redbrick pavers. It leads down West 8th Street and is parallel to Avenue C (just west of the walkway) that crosses directly beneath the station platform. There is a small parking area turnoff from 8th Street just east of the station entrance. This parking area is a simply for passenger pick-up and drop-off with parking spaces labeled for 15 minute parking only. In the plaza, between the parking area and 8th Street itself is a stainless steel sculpture of what resemble gears by Tom Nussbaum.
Photos 1-20: June 20, 2011; 21-50: February 15, 2013
