Railroaded by 9% spike

NJ TRANSIT riders are going to pay a lot more for less service.

Starting in October, riders will get socked with an average 9% hike in fares, and on top of that a number of late-night and earlymorning trips on two of its main lines will be eliminated.

The transit agency, staring at a $56 million hole in its $2 billion operating budget, said the double whammy will fill the gap.

NJ Transit Executive Director Veronique Hakim called the farehiking, service-cutting budget a “solid plan that had the least impact on our riders.”

But that did not soothe rider anger at paying more for diminishing service.

“If you’re going to increase the fare, at least fix the train delays,” said Louis Glover , 35, of Newark.

Dana Lowe, 42, who shells out $193 a month to commute between South Orange and Manhattan, said she’s not getting her money’s worth. “If my performance at my job decreased, I would be fired,” she said.

The revised schedule will cut one trip on the Pascack Valley and another on the Montclair-Boonton line. NJ Transit board member Bruce Meisel said the agency had to “operate within the framework of the cards that we’ve been dealt” by state lawmakers in Trenton.

In remarks Wednesday, Gov. Chris Christie boasted that his administration had managed to spare riders a fare hike for five years.

According to a spokesman, Christie, in response to a reporter’s question, put some of the onus on commuters.

“The state’s putting a lot of money into New Jersey Transit and we'll continue to do so, but riders have to bear some of that responsibility as well,” he said.

The new budget was approved after NJ Transit and its union recently hit an impasse on contract negotiations. Locomotive engineers had voted to strike unless the White House stepped in by Thursday. On Wednesday, President Obama formed a panel to recommend a solution within 30 days to the contract dispute between NJ Transit and a coalition of the agency’s rail unions.