On just 14 miles of track, PATH carries nearly as many riders as NJ Transit does on 467 miles of track.Īs of May, about 50% of riders have returned to PATH compared with pre-pandemic figures, a rate similar to transit peers like the New York subway system (62% return) and NJ Transit’s commuter rail, which was at 50% last month.Īt its height in 1927, PATH - known in the 20th century as the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad - carried more than 113 million passengers from Newark and Hoboken across the river to lower Manhattan and eventually up to 33rd Street.īut since being acquired by the Port Authority in 1962, PATH has at times been a punching bag at the bi-state agency, as it requires subsidies from other profit-generating departments. More than 284,000 people used the system each weekday in 2019, and that number had been increasing on average more than 2% each year since 2012 as development boomed in Hoboken, Jersey City and Harrison. Every morning rush-hour train had an endless flow of passengers packed in, "sardine-like," as DeGraffe put it. PATH’s ridership was growing at a rapid clip before the pandemic. Studies are also underway to examine expanding stations in the Marion neighborhood of Jersey City and at Newark Liberty International Airport. It includes upgrading the signal system, buying more train cars and expanding train sets and platforms to fit another one or two cars, depending on the line. It's why DeGraffe is forging ahead with a $1 billion plan designed to address the root causes of delays. “I love that picture, because to me it shows such ingenuity and just forethought that’s just amazing."īut like most transit systems, PATH is merely a means to an end for commuters who want to get where they are going on time. “When you’re riding uptown, this is what you’re going through," DeGraffe said, pausing to point to the frame. When DeGraffe looks at the picture, she sees an impressive and complex system of tracks engineered in the 1800s that still manages to carry thousands of people under the river each day. $1 billion and 50% of ridershipĪcross from DeGraffe’s desk is a large, framed, black-and-white sketch that exposes PATH’s hidden tunnels and tracks that snake underground throughout Hudson County. "We’ve got to do that maintenance and while we have the lower volume, so it’s a balance of really trying to provide service for the volume of people and maintaining the system, which is key, or else you’re not going to have a system," DeGraffe said. She is now the person charged with navigating PATH through two seemingly conflicting problems: luring back half of its customers lost to new work-from-home patterns while leading a billion-dollar plan that will expand capacity and upgrade the 114-year-old transit system to prepare for expected development booms in the future. Throughout her 33-year career with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, DeGraffe moved her way up from construction inspector to overseeing some of the largest jobs in the tri-state area, including the construction of Newark Airport's AirTrain and several projects during the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. “He started to get out of line,” she said, but “I think it made him think a little bit more about the challenges that we have." She then gave him her number, saying, “Shoot me a text and let me know what your experience is if you’re having an issue on the train.”ĭeGraffe learned two valuable lessons: Always put the customer experience first, but don't give out your number to strangers. These people do this all the time,” DeGraffe recalled on a recent day in her corner office at 1 PATH Plaza in Journal Square.ĭeGraffe told the man who she was and said the sudden stop was due to a glitch in the train's new signal system that they were trying to work out. The man next to her in the crowded car turned and said, “I’m so sick of this train. JERSEY CITY - Shortly after Clarelle DeGraffe was named general manager of the PATH transit system in 2019, she was riding the train during morning rush hour when it came to a stop outside Grove Street Station. Watch Video: Video: General manager on what it was like to lead PATH through COVID
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