(Bloomberg) – New Jersey busiers are asking riders to work from home during a possible union strike, which could start closing commuter rail services on May 16.
According to alerts posted on its website, the agency requires riders to travel for “basic purposes.” NJ Transit has unveiled a contingency plan to crack down on trains of about 100,000 people a day.
CEO Kris Kolluri said that given the concentration of cyclists to Manhattan, bus routes will be strengthened and the current bus routes will be lined up in New York City.
“We will focus on relocating essential workers who need to go to work,” he said in a news conference Wednesday. “For those who are capable of working from home, we require them to work from home if the strike becomes a reality.”
Union members represented by the fraternity of locomotive engineers and trainers voted earlier this month to reject the labor agreement. This sets the stage for engineers to strike in their daily work next month.
Engineers are responsible for operating the train and driving between each station. The railway union coordinated efforts in 2022 forced the system to stop all train services for the day. The demonstration also affected some lines in the north of the subway.
According to NJ Transit’s estimates, accepting union requests will cost taxpayers taxpayers, and the system will be approximately $1.4 billion between July and June 2030. Officials say the agency either has to increase fares by 17% starting this summer, so company shipping fees will increase by 27%, or reduce services.
NJ Transit is one of the largest public communication systems in the United States. It operates over 925,000 business day trips on its rail, bus and light rail platforms.
(Updated story with details about the contingency plan in the first two paragraphs.)
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