JERSEY DUMP
NJ Transit boss quits after Super Bowl debacle
FOLLOWING a postgame transit performance that was worse than the Super Bowl itself, the head of NJTransit is packing his bags.
NJ Transit Executive Director Jim Weinstein will be stepping down at month’s end, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie confirmed Tuesday — just weeks after the agency was faulted for its role in developing a Super Bowl transportation playbook that stranded fans outside MetLife Stadium for hours after the on-field blowout.
Weinstein, a member of Christie’s cabinet, will be replaced on March 1 by Veronique Hakim, now the executive director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, Christie’s office said in a statement. Hakim will in turn be replaced by Joseph Mrozek, currently the deputy commissioner at the state Department of Transportation.
The Record of Bergen County reported Weinstein sent a goodbye letter to staff on Tuesday that offered praise for the authority’s performance during the Feb. 2 Super Bowl, despite widespread criticism of the transit snafu that marred the New York area’s firstever turn hosting the big game.
Weinstein is on his way out after four years on the job following the firestorm over the he Super Bowl transportation plan, in which officials underestimated how many fans would be using mass transit to get home.
The Daily News reported exclusively this month that more than 100 NJ Transit buses were never deployed from a lot not far from the stadium to alleviate the crush in the parking lot as fans waited hours to board shuttle trains. NJ Transit planned for 16,000 rail riders for the Super Bowl. But as it turned out, 29,000 fans arrived by rail and 34,000 people used NJ Transit trains on the return trip.
NJ Transit was faulted under Weinstein’s watch for leaving almost 400 railcars in a lot during Hurricane Sandy that was prone to flooding. More than $100 million in damage was done to the cars by the storm’s epic surge.
Those losses could have been avoided, according to a 26-page report prepared by Texas A&M’s Engineering Extension Service, which evaluated NJTransit’s performance during the storm.
“Retired and unused railroad equipment impeded preparation . . . (and) claimed space that could have been used for emergency storage,” the report said.
State Sen. Robert Gordon, the chairman of the Senate Legislative Oversight Committee, has called for a hearing on what he called NJTransit’s “repeated failures.”