while transit troubles continue to complicate the commutes of NJ Transit Riders last night some of them had a chance to offer their solutions for how the agency can improve they spoke at a public NJ Transit board meeting offering suggestions like ways to improve communication and reduce overpack trains but their Solutions don't address some of the larger problems that have led to many of the train delays those issues caused by aging railroad infrastructure in desperate need of repair I'm joined Now by Colleen Wilson Transportation reporter from northjersey.com who was at last night's meeting and has been following New Jersey's Transit woses Colleen great to talk to you you got to uh sit in on the NJ Transit board meeting last night certainly I'm sure you heard an earful from frustrated commuters uh what were some of the key takeaways that you heard as Solutions proposed yes so that's what the commuters really came forward with they want they were complaining they were frustrated uh one woman even talked about being just really sad about the State of Affairs and you know I think a lot of people feeling a sense of declining mental health uh because of the stress of their commutes uh but as far as their uh proposals they're a lot of them were fairly you know simple or at least simple sounding uh you know they don't get great communication um the the the boards that tell them what tracks trains are coming on uh trains frequently disappear um or or their track numbers disappear and it just causes a whole lot of confusion and chaos and it seems like one of those things that's in New Jersey transits wheelhouse that could be fixed uh there's uh the issue of overcrowding uh so looking for better health and safety attention to to those issues and managing crowds that are in the stations that are on the platforms that are cramming into these trains that are trying to carry passengers after you know others are cancelled and uh the the last thing is just better contingency planning um having more robust options for cross-honoring so when something does go wrong they can take a ferry they could you know take the metro uh to where they the subway where they need to go um you know they already do some level of cross honoring with path and and buses and their own buses but uh you know people need more options given uh the the level and the and the extreme um you know layers of problems NJ Transit has said uh that it has a plan to bring in more double decker trains I'm not sure how much that actually gets to the heart of the issue but we know one of the ongoing issues uh are the the repairs that are needed have you heard anything from either Congressman palone or Amtrak on their plans to either accelerate the speed of repairs or or at least address them in full there is not a whole lot of detail about immediate uh plans to replace and upgrade uh the Aging electric traction infrastructure your wires your signals your uh substations that all the things that provide power to the trains uh what they are doing is increasing inspections and some repairs on on those aging decades old 50 plus year old wires and things like that uh and so they're what Amtrak and New Jersey Transit are basically saying is that all the resources they're throwing into that right now is is what's kept those problems mostly at Bay for at least a number of weeks um but how long can they continue how long can they sustain that that's the question and furthermore why aren't their more immediate plans to replace and upgrade catenary and and other uh problems that have persisted for decades and were first identified to be replaced uh 50 years ago uh that's what you know that's what I think New Jersey customers want to see that's what I think even New Jersey Transit wants to see they pay a lot of money to to use those and they state of good repair like that um so that is what you know congressman palone and others um have been talking about with with Amtrak we know that NJ Transit is facing a massive budget deficit uh the state has implemented this corporate Transit fee but that's not going to kick in even throughout the next fiscal year what are they looking for in terms of federal support at this point just to get them through this Gap um Federal support for the for these repairs yes they they're yeah so that is that is one thing that they are trying to do now amtr has put in uh for four grants uh to do more wide ranging repairs um so they they should or you know are eligible to receive some of that funding but again you know those are projects that are going to take years um to to put together and we'll only solve some of the problems some of those wires aren't going to be replaced as of right now until the portal Bridge Project is done until Gateway is finished which is 2035 2038 uh so you know the the federal grants are are good they're they're helpful um they would solve some level of problem but they don't help commuters now yeah um we also see right now that Engineers are posed to strike uh it looks like the Biden Administration has stepped in the the president has taken some action there what can you tell us about the the board that he's put in place yeah so with you know just hours to go before uh that deadline elapsed uh President Biden decided to execute a presidential emergency board uh which is a group of people who will now have to kind of hear both sides from New Jersey Transit and uh the Brotherhood of locomotive engineers and trainmen uh and then they will come up with a report and basically try to you know negotiate a um a contract uh or at least uh try to weed through what what both sides are saying and and um and make some decisions or make them come to some decisions uh so that process can take 120 days according to New Jersey Transit and if that's unsuccessful it sounds like a second presidential emergency board could uh uh be uh you know go into effect and so then you'd have another 120 days of of going through that process again uh so a lot more you know this is this is designed this way to to uh try to stall and and come to Solutions bring people to the table uh so uh we will just have to see but it's certainly not there are no there's no emminent uh uh possibility of a strike at least right now and we know that that would completely derail what's already been a completely upended transit system here in New Jersey Colleen Wilson Transportation reporter with north northjersey.com thank you thanks for having me [Music]