The Union County Light Rail was a proposed light rail system connecting Newark Airport to midtown Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Project details and status

The Union County Light Rail was originally proposed as the third "minimum operating segment" (MOS-3) of the Newark-Elizabeth Rail Link (NERL). The first section of the NERL project became known as the ''

Broad Street Line The Broad Street Line (BSL), also known as the Broad Street subway (BSS), Orange Line, or Broad Line, is a subway line owned by the city of Philadelphia and operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). The line ru ...

''. This section, which links Broad Street Station in Newark with

Penn Station Pennsylvania Station is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad to several of its grand passenger terminals. Pennsylvania Station or Penn Station may also refer to Current train stations * Baltimore Penn Station * Pennsylvania Station (Cinc ...

in Newark, opened in July 2006. The second section would have linked Newark Penn Station and Newark Airport. The Union County Light Rail would have had eight or nine stations in Elizabeth, one at Newark Airport and possible future stations in other towns. The line connecting Midtown (Broad Street) Station and Newark Airport would have been long, and been built on former Conrail lines (originally the main line of the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

), now under ownership of the

New Jersey Department of Transportation The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) is the agency responsible for transportation issues and policy in New Jersey, including maintaining and operating the state's highway and public road system, planning and developing transporta ...

(NJDOT) traversing Elizabeth from east to west. Further extension along the right-of-way westward to Cranford or points further west on the

Raritan Valley Line The Raritan Valley Line is a commuter rail service operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) which serves passengers in municipalities in Union, Somerset, and Hunterdon counties in the Raritan Valley region in central New Jersey, United States. ...

was also forwarded by citizen groups. In 2006, NJ Transit removed Union County Light Rail from its list of candidate projects in its Capital Improvement Program, effectively ending the project.

Proposed station list

* AirTrain Newark at parking lot P2 *North Avenue *Kapkowski Road * Jersey Gardens *Ferry Terminal (ferry to New York City) *Singer Station (possible station) *Third Street/ Elizabethport *Division Street *Spring Street ( U.S. Route 1/9) * Midtown Station - connections with the

Northeast Corridor Line The Northeast Corridor Line is a commuter rail service operated by NJ Transit between the Trenton Transit Center and New York Penn Station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor in the United States. The service is the successor to Pennsylvania Railroad ...

Proposed extension stations

* Elmora * Lorraine * Roselle *

Cranford Station Cranford is an active commuter railroad station in the township of Cranford, Union County, New Jersey. Trains operate between High Bridge and Newark Penn Station (with limited trains continuing to New York Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal) o ...

The first three were former CNJ station locations.

Union ''go bus'' expressway

The Union ''go bus'' expressway is a proposed bus rapid transit system between

Garwood Garwood can refer to: People * Doug Garwood, American golfer * Edmund Johnston Garwood, British geologist * Julie Garwood, author * Kelton Garwood, American actor * Richard Garwood, Air Marshall in the Royal Air Force * Robert R. Garwood, prison ...

and the airport via Midtown Elizabeth which includes routing elements of the light rail plan.

References

*Johnson, Gary. ''Union County, NJ: Elizabeth-to-Newark Airport light rail project under way''. August 8, 2005.

External links

NJTransit Union County Light Rail
{{New Jersey Transit Light Rail Transportation in Elizabeth, New Jersey Light rail in New Jersey NJ Transit Rail Operations New Jersey streetcar lines