NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri faced the Assembly Budget Committee on Monday with literally one foot out the door, as he headed for contract negotiations to avert a rail strike by his locomotive engineers.
The Brotherhood of Local Engineers and Trainmen membership voted down the agency’s last offer, and a strike is set for mid-May. But Kolluri argued that NJ Transit can’t afford union demands for wage parity with engineers in New York.
“Three hundred and seventy-two members of a union of my colleagues somehow think it’s fair to get a $55,000 pay raise,” Kolluri told Assembly’s budget committee. “Well, I just don’t think it’s right.”
That could cost the agency an extra $4 million a day to provide alternate transportation for just 20% of 100,000 rail riders, he said. Kolluri noted the union demands would cost $1.3 billion, and require a 17% fare hike or a 27% increase in the corporate transit fee.
Union officials dispute Kolluri’s calculations and claim their demands would cost about $250 million. But Kolluri said he is also worried about the current economic forecast.
‘We may be facing a recession. We’re looking at tariffs that could be punitive, at best,” he said. “I try to focus on problems, not politics. But tariffs and complexity surrounding tariffs will have a huge impact on our on-time delivery of parts.”
Both sides were expected to meet again Monday afternoon. The union said in a statement: “BLET will present an affordable proposal to NJT today that would bring engineers closer to parity with what other engineers in the industry working in passenger rail earn.”
Also on hand in the budget hearing, the state’s top transportation officials said they are also hoping for help to address another crisis: the collapses and closings of I-80 due to sinkholes.
Route 80 has been closed for weeks near Exit 34, as workers grapple with filling in sinkholes from collapsed mine shafts. Repairs cost an estimated $150,000 per day, and traffic is detoured around the construction in both east and westbound directions. Still, Transportation Commissioner Francis O’Connor acknowledged it’s a mess.
“We know this is one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the state, and that disruption caused by the emergency sinkhole repair affects thousands of people every day. I want to assure you that the NJ DOT is working with urgency and doing everything we can to get these lanes reopened quickly but above all else — safely,” O’Connor said.
A couple lanes in each direction should reopen by the end of May, he said, but it’ll take until the end of June to finish the job.
Another pressing transportation deadline: May 7. That’s when the TSA will require Real IDs to board domestic flights, unless one has a valid passport. And New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission has been struggling to meet the demand for Real ID appointments.
“The deadline crept up on many to the point where it seems those who didn’t already have a Real ID — but needed or just wanted one — were all attempting to get one at once,” said Acting Commissioner Latrecia Littles-Floyd.
State Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz (R-Union) pressed the commissioner: “We’re hearing from our constituents — they simply cannot get an appointment. You used the word — and I wrote it down — that it ‘crept’ up on us? When did it come to your attention that we were really in a crisis mode?”
The acting commissioner said pressure for appointments started building in late February, despite the agency having promoted the program for years. But she explained, a high percentage of New Jersey residents already have valid passports, which the TSA will also accept for domestic flights.
She said the agency just added RealID Tuesdays — to its RealID Thursdays — to offer even more chances to sign up.
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