Kris Kolluri speaks at the NJ Transit press conference. (CREDIT: The New York Times)
NJ Transit will begin full service again on Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) reached a contract agreement with NJ Transit over the weekend.
The strike caused distress for daily commuters in New Jersey who rely on public transportation to get to work.
On Friday, Chris Smith, an executive chef in Midtown Manhattan, paid $79 for a one-way Amtrak ticket into New York City.
"I think [NJ Transit] is selfish," Smith told the New York Times. "They put tens of thousands of people in a stressful environment. Friday was horrible. Trust me."
Smith is just one of over 100,000 commuters who were impacted by the strike on Friday.
Both NJ Transit President Kris Kolluri and BLET General Chairman Tom Haas discussed the contract agreement that was reached on Sunday.
"The deal, as the governor correctly said, is fair and fiscally responsible," said Kolluri. "The deal itself reflects a series of concessions that came together by way of a work rule that will eventually end up paying for this fair wage that the unions have asked for."
"While I won't get into the exact details of the deal reached, I will say that the only real issue was wages," Tom Haas told the AP. "We were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month and beyond where we were when NJ Transit's managers walked away from the table Thursday evening."
NJ Transit originally stated that they would be open for full service on Monday morning. However, they need a full 24 hours to complete track inspections before resuming full service; therefore, they will resume full service on Tuesday at 12:01 a.m..
NJ TRANSIT & the BLET have announced a tentative agreement.
NJ TRANSIT train service will resume on Tuesday, May 20, as it takes approximately 24 hours to inspect and prepare the infrastructure before returning to full scheduled service.
Details at https://t.co/MwGEE56qhU pic.twitter.com/t93WgYiVHH
Residents remain without rail service for one more day, through May 19th.
For Monday, NJ Transit will be using its strike contingency plan, which involves chartered buses running from four satellite locations into the city or to stations on the PATH train service.
"I don't use the bus often but I didn't have any problem like that," Khan told NorthJersey.com. "They weren't crowded at all. The express bus was almost empty. Maybe people don't know about it."
