This afternoon I deceided it was time to finally leave the neighborhood and go on a little transit adventure down the Jersey side of the Hudson River waterfront. The main excuse for the trip was to finally get more photos and more importantly my descriptions of the Pavonia-Newport (excuse me just Newport) and Hoboken PATH stations, plus see how the main Hoboken Terminal is holding up post Superstorm Sandy. I look at the Hudson-Bergen Light rail timetable and decide that I might has well take a joyride down to Bayonne on the Bayonne Flyer, HBLR Express trains to Bayonne that skip a few stops on their trips down there to see what those odd express trains are like. There even a few reserve peak trips, I count 7 southbound and 3 northbound reverse PM Peak trips in today’s timetable. AM Service is even more frequent.
Destination sign (they change after the express runs to the normal 8th Street or Hoboken Terminal destinations):
Recording: Announcement at 45th Street that the next stop is Essex Street and This is the Bayonne Flyer, Express Service.
Like all my trips to Hoboken and Jersey City now, this one starts with a walk across the George Washington Bridge. I leave my house a little before 2:00 and start walking across. My goal is the 2:25 Bus on Route 158 that will take me down to Weehawken via River Road. It is a much nicer ride than the couple of buses that run via the much slower Bergenline Avenue, a shopping street on top of the hill and connect to that much nicer light rail station. I get to the otherside of the bridge at 2:23 and I decide I might as well start walking down the hill of River Road towards Edgewater instead of up into Fort Lee where I might miss the bus. What’s frustrating is that a stop is made by northbound buses closer, but not southbound ones. I end up starting to walk the half mile down River Road (with a suspect sidewalk in places) towards Maple Street. As I get close, I see a bus approaching and jog the rest of the way but its the other route, the 188. I sit in an odd cinderblock shelter to wait.
At 2:38 (9 minutes later than the time listed on myBus) my 158 bus finally shows up. Its one of the neat low-floor articulated with cushioned seats. Its heading to the Port Authority. I get on and pay my fare of $3.05 including the 70 Cent transfer fee to HBLR, handing it over to the driver that could give me change (luckily I remembered the nickle). He prints me one of NJT’s ridiculously long receipts. I figure out half of it is my receipt for paying, the other my transfer with an expiration time of 4:38 on it. I guess that’s the time my POP will expire on the HBLR. The bus is relatively empty when I get on but as we wend our way down River Road through Edgewater it gets more and more croweded. The stops take longer (its clearly quite a lot of evening trippers, not just monthly passes like my morning trip on this bus) than they should. Jersey really needs a tap on tap off fare card, it would make trips so much smoother. Perhaps simply use the same technology as UTA. Eventually I get off at the Port Imperial Ferry Bus Loop (through the back door as always, on some NJT Bus trips they seem to close off the back door) at 2:57.
I notice a Train to West Side Avenue is in the station and I hop on. The automated announcements aren’t working and I only guess the train is going to West Side Avenue because it has two LRVs, not a single LRV that the Hoboken to Tonnelle Trains are. I decide I might as well make a photo stop at Lincoln Harbor and get off. Its a 3 minute wait for the Hoboken Train’s single LRV to enter for me. I take it to Hoboken.
I immediately notice the destruction Sandy has done to the terminal. Hoboken Terminal is my favorite station of the historic terminals. It reopened right after Sandy until mold was discovered and was just closed for two months. I notice that customer service and the ticket office are both in separate trailers and inside the open station are tons of traps covering everything. All the historic benches are even gone (I assume undergoing restoration). I get my photos of the eery terminal including the ferry port. I also wonder around and figure out the exact layout of the Hoboken PATH station so I can finally write that station page (Hoboken Terminal is in the works too!) I notice the elevator is completely closed and surrounded by plywood walls, I wonder why, water was gushing down the shaft (in a video from the CCTV cameras)!
Eventually I start walking down along the Waterfront Walking to the Pavonia-Newport HBLR station (getting a few more photos of the PATH station headhouse) and remembering how the stops aren’t really connected (cross a street and go through a poorly marked corridor through a building). I get there at 4:06 to a 22nd Street short-turn train leaving. I go and buy a light rail ticket (my transfer expiring, but a ride on the Bayonne Flyer seems worth $2.10). A West Side Avenue bound train comes in and the station countdown clocks simply say a train to 8th Street will be arriving in 9 minutes.
Nearly immediately after this train comes in and the destination signs all say Bayonne Flyer. We leave at 4:13. The automated announcements are off. The LRV driver is making them manually saying the stops were skipping. We skip Hirasmus cove. I hear one automated announcement saying This is the Bayonne Flyer service. We skip Marin Blvd and Jersey Avenue. At these stations all the countdown clocks say 8th street 0 minutes, I don’t think their programmed correctly since were not stop. It’s stop and go, I wouldn’t call this a nice fast express run.
4:28 — stop at Liberty State Park and finally pick up speed (well the line south of here is faster). Tree are about 8 PCCs wrapped in tarps. Just south of the yard, we start wrong railing as we bypass Richard Street and Danforth. I wonder why and we do pass two train going the other way. The destination signs all of a sudden say Essex Street inside the train.
I look at the timetable and notice there is a put-in from the yard heading south only to 22nd street right behind us. I get off at 45th street to ride that at 4:34, the ride from Pavonia-Newport taking 21 minutes. The regular trains are scheduled at (Iooking at the weekend schedule) 20 minutes, I don’t think the Bayonne Flyer saved me any time (or a minute or two). The driver has changed the destination signs back to normal of 9th Street so no photos here documenting I just took the first Bayonne Flyer of the PM Rush Hour (I did get one of the train entering with the correct sign at Pavoina-Newport)
The Yard put in to 22nd Street arrives also wrong-railing. I take it to its terminus at 22nd street where we switch over to the normal, 8th Street-bound track where it terminates in the station. There is confusion at the two side platforms in this station. This train leaves to head back north. I get on the next regular southbound train to 8th Street that is on the Hoboken-bound platform (I guess correctly). It will become the next northbound Bayonne Flyer.
We arrive at 8th Street to another train in the station ready to leave down the single track that I photograph leaving over the single track heading north. The signs of my train immediately change to Bayonne Flyer.
The northbound Bayonne Flyer leaves six minutes after that train at 4:53 without time for any other southbound arrivals. We wrong rail into 22nd street where another train is terminating there on the normal Hoboken-bound platform, a number of people run across to catch the my train, the Flyer. We continue to wrong railing through Bayonne.
At 5:00 we stop at 45th street, our last stop before the express run non-stop to Essex Street, still wrong-railing. Bayonne Flyer trains stop at Liberty State Park in the peak direction only (reverse peak trains, southbound in AM, northbound in PM bypass it). For this train the automated announcements are fully working, saying this is the Bayonne Flyer Express Service and making the correct announcement at 45th Street that the next stop is Essex Street. This I anticipate and record this on my iPhone. Just south of the HBLR yard we resume the correct track. We finally stop for a light just before liberty state park at 5:05 and after the station as well for the light.
This run seems a bit faster, we get to Essex street at 5:11 within 11 minutes, a local run though is scheduled for 12 minutes.
I get off at Exchange Place when I notice another southbound Bayonne Flyer is across the platform. I notice our destination signs are the normal Hoboken Terminal although the train is also due to skip Harberside Financial Center. All in all, the Bayonne Flyer seems like an unnecessary gimmick that doesn’t save any time.
At this point I’ve ran out of time on my HBLR ticket and also notice the nice new illuminated PATH logos at the Exchange Place–(12 Photos added to the page uploaded yesterday), entrances. In my pictures the logo almost looks like I photoshoped it on. The Exit side of the Elevator Landing is also closed (with sandbags)
I have a nice walk up in the dusk along both HBLR, getting some night photos of Harborside Financial Center and one of the similar large logo at the Newport PATH station. I want to board PATH at Hoboken for photography purposes. I get there (via the Waterfront Walkway again, croweded even in the dusk). Its nice to see the illuminated replica clock tower for night photos and the waiting room feels even more eery with its construction. I eventually descent onto PATH directly beyond the bumper blocks (where I intented for photos). I grab my wallet and am trying to find my SmartLink card but put my wallet up to the target and it beeps me in, deducting a ride from the 10 trips I buy (so I can pay $1.70 instead of $2.00+ for PATH, I was also paying $1.30 for a quite a while even after the last fare hike with a ton of remaining taps).
At Hoboken I get lucky with the schedule for my photos. A 33rd Street train soon leaves, but there is no sign of my train for World Trade Center. This means I get a few photos of the 3 track, 3 platform terminal lacking any trains (a rarity) before my train to WTC comes in as well as another 33rd Street train. I even have a chance to go up to the other fare control area and get a few more photos.
I take the WTC train one stop to Newport where I find the new blue Newport column signs ghastly. The old Paviona-Newport signs fit in so much better to the century old pink and green Erie platform columns. I walk the two mezzanines acquainting myself with the station for my discription and get on the next train to 33rd Street. I get off at 33rd Street and do the same, now ready to right a summery of at least the PATH portion of the ridiculously complicated Herald Square complex that I just have never quite finished.
My mind is flowing with the layout of 33rd Street and I’m thirsty. Where else do I go but the ClubAcela for some potato chips and Sierra Mist? I also write some notes down to help me later for the 33rd Street PATH station. I walk up 8th Avenue to a dollar pizza place for a real bite to eat (potato chips aren’t enough) and then get on the A train and head uptown to home.
-16 and 17, shorter with a replica canopy.Green plywood surrounds the elevator.
-tiny portion of platform 1 has strange 1950s look.