South Orange, New Jersey is a diverse, affluent and hip - with charming downtown restaurants serving everything from waffles to wine. But the real draw is the 100-year-old train station on South Orange Avenue. With 4,000 daily riders, it's the busiest stop on NJ Transit's Morris and Essex line, and a critical factor in why so many professionals and young people choose to raise families here.
South Orange is one of the most desirable towns to live in, says Village President Sheena Collum, but "we know that the lifeblood of the community is our train station."
Which is why Collum is concerned. Conditions around the station have declined in the last eight years under Gov. Chris Christie's administration. Train breakdowns and delays during peak morning rush hours have grown worse, as the state reduced the amount of money spent on equipment maintenance. There's a shortage of conductors to load and manage passengers, and more equipment failures.
Bottom line, there are not enough trains to accommodate all those who want to get to and from New York. The existing Amtrak-owned tunnels are at capacity.
Collum traces the recent decline back to the decision the now-former governor made in 2010, just nine months into his first term: He killed a $9 billion project to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River connecting New York and New Jersey, known as ARC, short for Access to the Region's Core.
It was a dramatic moment in Christie's first term, one that sent reporters racing to Trenton, and set transit advocates on edge. Christie stood at a podium and told reporters he'd learned the tunnel would go over budget and didn't want taxpayers stuck with the bill.
"The ARC Tunnel will cost no less than $11 billion and could exceed $14 billion," he announced. "I simply cannot put the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey on what would be a never ending hook."
It wasn't actually news. A federal report revealed years earlier it would go over budget. But, Christie was a rising star in the Republican Party and was burnishing his image as a tough-talking conservative. And he wanted to balance the state budget without raising the gas tax. After killing ARC, he shifted more than $3 million that was supposed to go to the tunnel project, to other transportation projects.
Many still find it hard to forgive that decision, even with Christie out of office.
"Unfortunately, Governor Christie’s legacy as it relates to mass transit will be an epic failure," Collum said. "He put politics over the people of New Jersey by canceling what would be one of the largest infrastructure investments, which was Access to the Region’s Core, a tunnel project that would be coming on line this year had he not had such a myopic view on transportation and its impacts on the entire region."
Christie's office did not respond to a request for comment.
NJ Transit is New Jersey's public transportation agency, with more than 900,000 passenger trips daily on its trains, buses and light rails lines all around the state. But train service to New York has been particularly stretched because Amtrak's rail tunnels, which it uses to into New York, are at capacity.
Lisa Davis is an entertainment lawyer who has been commuting into New York City from South Orange for 19 years. She said there are often delays. The worst was when she left home early to attend the funeral of a beloved colleague.
"The train just stopped," she said. It sat for about 25 minutes. "I just started crying on the train."
Davis said it angers her that the ARC tunnel is not going to open this year and she blames the former governor.
"I was aware that Christie pulled the plug on that tunnel and that the reason for the delays was that there were too many trains trying to get into one tunnel," she said.
Michael Phelan co-founded the New Jersey Commuters Action Network based in Newark, and said Christie never laid out a clear vision for transportation, and that a lack of investment has ultimately hurt commuters.
"I’m talking about folks who missed job interviews, who lost jobs, folks who are standing in Port Authority or Penn Station begging their daycare, crying with their day care center saying I’m going to be another hour," he said.
After terminating ARC, Christie threw his support behind a new tunnel project Amtrak has proposed called "Gateway." But funding for that project is in limbo. Unlike ARC, which had federal funding secured, the Trump Administration has not committed to a certain amount for Gateway.
Gov. Phil Murphy has promised to support mass transit in the state, and he recognizes the problems.
"We have a transit agency - NJ Transit, which once was a national model, but now is a national punchline," he told a room full of business people at a Meadowlands Chamber event last year. It's "crying for reinvestment and re-imagining."