House passes bill to analyze benefits of single-seat rides on Raritan Valley Line

The House of Representatives today passed the One Seat Ride Act, a bill authored by Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) that would order the Transportation Department to conduct a study on the feasibility of single-seat commuter rail trips, particularly on New Jersey’s Raritan Valley Line.

Currently, commuters on the Raritan Valley Line have to switch trains at Newark Penn Station in order to get to and from New York City, a headache for constituents of Kean and neighboring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing). Kean’s bill, which was co-sponsored by Watson Coleman, would get the federal government formally involved in finding a solution.

“Rail lines with one-seat ride service into Manhattan are more desirable and encourage more development of residential housing units, retail stores, and offices located near existing train stations,” Kean said on the House floor. “One-seat ride on the RVL is something that my constituents and many New Jerseyans want to see become a reality before the completion of the Gateway Project years down the road.”

The bill passed the House on a 356-61 vote, with every no vote coming from the GOP side of the aisle; all eleven present New Jersey representatives supported the bill. (Rep. Andy Kim was not in attendance for the vote.)

As Kean alluded to in his remarks, the chief impediment to enacting one seat ride on the Raritan Valley Line is the lagging capacity of the rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River, which limits the number of trains that can go into and out of New York at once. 

A New Jersey Transit report from 2020 found that the main realistic options for one-seat rides would either involve completing the Gateway Project, which will completely revamp the Hudson River tunnel system, or reduce service on other lines to give the Raritan Valley Line the room to make it into New York City. The latter would be politically perilous, since that would mean disadvantaging other towns and commuters, while the former isn’t set to be completed for more than a decade.

For Kean and Watson Coleman, they’d rather have the Transportation Department get involved and see if there are any options that won’t force their constituents to wait quite so long.

“The Raritan Valley Line serves over 23,000 commuters each day – and many of those commuters have to switch trains at Newark Penn Station during peak commuting hours, unnecessarily extending an already lengthy commute,” Watson Coleman said in a statement after the One Seat Ride Act passed the House. “This report is a necessary step towards a more efficient system that better serves the hard working people of New Jersey and allowing them to spend more of their valuable time with their families.”