By almost any measure the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail transit system has been a ringing success, spurring economic development along its route — from restaurants and cafes to condos and office towers. So, expanding it would seem to be a good idea, especially in a region of the state that is booming.
“Since its opening 15 years ago, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail has been a national model for what a transit project can be,” Senator Bob Menendez said today, “and it’s that national model that we were exhibiting to the regional administrator of the federal Transit Administration as well as New Jersey Transit’s Executive Director who knows the system very well.”
Menendez and a group of Hudson County Mayors, including Richard Turner of Weehawken and Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken, toured a portion of the system to show federal officials just what it had wrought, and to advocate for its expansion, specifically here, at the West Side Avenue station. The western terminus of the system has already sparked development here, including new housing, retail and the expansion of the NJCU campus. County Executive Tom DeGise says the station here is just a quarter of a mile from the Hackensack River, once a brownfields site, but now cleaned up and ripe for development.
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