It was George Carlin, some thirty years ago, who declared that he was tired of self-righteous environmentalists who are only interested in a clean place to live, "these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths."
And it was likely that impetus that led to the state of New Jersey purchasing a nine-mile railroad right of way from Norfolk Southern Railway for twenty million smackers to build a "greenway" - a linear park to offer recreational cycling and walking green space for "historically underserved communities" (i.e., ghettoes), with buffer zones to control flooding, and blah blah blah . . .
The nine-mile railroad right of way purchased for this Essex-Hudson Greenway goes through the New Jersey municipalities of Montclair, Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, Belleville, Newark, Kearny, Secaucus, and Jersey City - many of these places, by the way, hardly renowned for greenery and scenery. This right of way, though, does, I admit, lead through wonderful natural landscapes like this meadow in Secaucus.
Anyway, this line, part of the old Erie Boonton line that went to Hoboken, was used for NJ Transit passenger trains until the Montclair Connection was built to connect to the old Lackawanna line that terminated in Montclair, allowing trains from the Boonton line to go directly into Midtown Manhattan rather than end at Hoboken and require passengers to change to the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) trains to get into New York City. So NJ Transit no longer needs this nine-mile leg, right?
Well, wait a minute. There were stations along this nine-mile route where commuters found it more convenient to board a train to New York than to go farther south, away from their own neighborhoods, to get a direct train to Manhattan. The switch from the end of the Boonton Line to the PATH in Hoboken was hardly an inconvenience, as they are right next to each other. And a lot of commuters were ticked off when this part of the line shut down in 2002; many commuters in North Arlington, New Jersey - so named because it is north of the Arlington section of Kearny - were flabbergasted about having to go out other way in a fifteen-minute drive to the nearest active station in Lyndhurst rather than board the train in the Arlington section of Kearny, which they could no longer do. The Montclair Connection allowed trains on the Boonton Line to go through downtown Newark but left residents of the North Ward of Newark without direct train access.
I believe that this nine-mile leg of the old railroad line should have remained active and was not in fact made redundant by the Montclair Connection. There was no reason not to have the line from Montclair to New York and the line from Montclair to Hoboken active. As I have always said, the only thing wrong with American passenger railroad lines is that there aren't enough of them.
Personally, I'm getting tired of this rail-to-trail trend. Rail is the only way we're going to get more cars - excuse me, SUVs - off the highways. Instead of preserving passenger rail lines and providing more environmentally friendly transportation for commuters - even in this post-COVID world, some people still do commute - we're taking these old railroad rights of way and making them into places for people to hike, which isn't a fast way to get to where you're going. One such trail replaced the old commuter rail line that served my area, and now the only way for me to get into Manhattan is by bus - and the DeCamp buses no longer run after 8:30 P.M (and not after 9:30 P.M. on weekends), making it difficult for people in my area to stay longer in the city that never sleeps. DeCamp's schedule makes more sense for a city where they roll up the sidewalks at night.
Perhaps the most ridiculous example of the rail-to-trail trend is the High Line in Manhattan, an elevated former freight railway in which a pedestrian path was installed and trees and flowers were planted on the trestle - the trestle, where there is no solid ground beneath for trees to take root. Turn an unused elevated freight rail track into a commuter line while the Second Avenue subway continues to be constructed at a snail's pace? Never thought of that.
Oh, but the Essex-Hudson Greenway will provide a practical use, we are told - suburbanites will be able to commute to Hoboken by bicycle! What is this, Amsterdam? Are you kidding me? I don't care if the grade on this linear park (linear park?) is relatively flat - who's going to commute nine freakin' miles one way on a bicycle? And then take the bike on the PATH to get to Manhattan? Really? Hey, have you thought of how they're going to commute to Hoboken by bike when it rains?
Hey, I have an idea. How about turn Interstate 280 in Essex County into a greenway? It would provide more green space for Roseland and West Orange, two once-rural towns that are now overbuilt suburbs with tract housing, office buildings and shopping centers thanks to the freeway. It would not only provide some nice pedestrian space in downtown Newark but also give some relief to my mother's hometown of Orange and to East Orange - two small cities turned into "historically underserved communities" by the construction of I-280. You could especially do some really nice landscaping in the moat that was dug out in East Orange to put the freeway through!
And, New Jersey politicians, if you do that, and help East Orange reverse course and shed its reputation as the state's epicenter of hardcore rap acts, and improve the once-fashionable city to the point where the words "east" and "orange" are no longer, when put together, the two scariest words in the English language to a New Jerseyan, maybe I'll consider the Essex-Hudson Greenway in place of the old railway line. But until you reverse the crime that is I-280, why don't you take a hike on your precious bourgeois-liberal greenway with a high colonic?
And if you're not from the historically underserved community, stay the fuck out of the historically underserved community.
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