Secaucus Junction — Attraction in Secaucus

Conveniently located in the middle of nowhere, Secaucus Junction leads the state of New Jersey in broken escalators. Seriously, they’re always broken. Parking here (via Edison ParkFast) can cost you up to and over $30/day on weekdays, which is shameful. Secaucus Junction, despite being a gigantic train hub, has one small, dirty bathroom. The former pizza place in the main lobby closed and NJ Transit hasn’t bothered to bring in a new tenant for years. The addition of Dunkin’ was a huge plus, although the adjoining convenience store is pretty overpriced.

If you’re coming to Secaucus to catch a train to New York-Penn Station, it’s basically a guarantee your scheduled connection will arrive late. This train station has been around for 20 years now and they still just use an old cardboard sign in the hallway to direct riders to the tracks for New York.

The train platforms are large but are very poorly marked in terms of which is which (especially A and B, which frequently run into New York). You may have to walk a very long distance down the platform to find an escalator or stairs depending on where you get off your train.

You’re also forced to scan your ticket through a barricade of turnstiles in the lobby in order to walk over to your desired track — but then conductors will scan [illogically] your ticket a second time aboard the train, even though you physically could not have boarded that train without having scanned the ticket. The turnstiles create a nice backup of bodies trying to get through the station and remains a point of frustration for a lot of riders unfamiliar with...

It's clean and sunny. That's the best thing you can say about it. That would be fine if it were a meadow but as a transit junction it is woefully inadequate. Somehow with unlimited space to work in they built a train station that is inconvenient to use in every possible way.

Not satisfied with this particular abuse of public transport, they also have the worst communication and traffic management.

Train arrivals are switched from one track to another at the last second and then the train is not held to allow passengers to get to the new track.

Signage is almost entirely absent. Where is the nearest staircase? It's a mystery that they don't wish to share. Departure boards are posted in positions that cannot be viewed while walking.

Escalators have been out of service for months. Stairs are made from material that is very slippery when wet, which seems to be their state even on mornings when there has been no rain and the stairs have a roof.

Parking is very limited, there is no immediate access to major highways, there is no coordination with bus transportation evident and the taxi stand / passenger drop off area is designed with a SINGLE lane for traffic.

There is only one way to get from the station to the street and that is through the middle of the station, which forces pedestrian traffic to congest there.

What ends did they have to go to to find the incompetence in design and management on display in this station? It is a case study in what not to do.

The station was opened in 2003. It's not 20 years old yet. So it's clean....

Secaucus Junction Station is never ever called Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station, just like no one calls the New Tappen Zee Bridge the Mario Cuomo Bridge nor does anyone call the Triboro Bridge the RFK Bridge.

Strong points of the station are:

1. adequate bathrooms
2. responsive (by NJT standards) customer service desk staffed by very kind, if beleaguered, transit workers

Weak points are:

1. escalators are often out of service
2. lack of adequate signage, particularly showing the station in 3d with typical transfer path arrows
3. partially due to the above, severe bottlenecking at the scanner gates at rush hour (huge safety hazard)
4. 1 to 2 semi-perminant homeless who reside on the side of the upper level with less foot traffic (but no where near 10 to 30 seen daily at the Lackawanna Hoboken terminal waiting hall)
5. parts of the boarding platforms on both levels that extend out from under the main station building structure are completely exposed to the elements, with entire sections rendered impassable due to the concrete surface being completely destroyed by wind, rain and heat driven erosion

Note in addition to the mini-pub tucked away on the south wing, beer is sold at the convenience store next to the Dunkin'...