New Jersey Transit experiences severe morning delays Special

Newark - Citing power problems in the ongoing infrastructure challenges facing the region, New Jersey Transit commuters experienced widespread disruption Friday morning as one of the train lines connecting New Jersey and Manhattan went offline.

New Jersey Transit's travel alerts on Friday afternoon promised a return to normal scheduling after a massive travel disruption during rush hour on Friday morning sent thousands of commuters scrambling for alternative routes. All New Jersey Transit trains operating between the hyper-busy Newark-Manhattan corridor were severely delayed, and the incident was blamed on an outage in the service's overhead power lines, as the Wall Street Journal reported. Amtrak officials said the outage resulted in 30 minute delays, however commuters heading into Manhattan were told to use Path train service, and overcrowded Path trains were ferrying New Jersey Transit customers through Lower Manhattan corridors. According to figures released by the rail service in 2007, New Jersey Transit has a ridership of 865,000 trips per day. Friday morning's delays are the latest in a string of service disruptions, and the incident underscores the need for a third tunnel connecting Midtown Manhattan with New Jersey. Last October, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie halted the development of a third train tunnel, citing projected cost overruns that cash-strapped New Jersey could not shoulder. As Politico reported in September, Governor Christie has since agreed to return $95 million of the $271 million provided to the state for the infrastructure project by the federal government.