New Jersey lawmakers are asking the federal government to fulfill a $10 million request to help improve the safety of the New Jersey Transit.
{mosads}On Friday, the state’s congressional delegation sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx requesting the money to help the agency install a GPS-based positive train control system, the Associated Press reported.
The letter comes after a deadly train crash last month in Hoboken.
Foxx at a new conference in New York said he couldn’t yet commit to fulfilling the agency’s request.
“We think it is a lifesaver,” Foxx said of the positive train control system. “But we have a process that we have to go through. I can’t make that commitment right this second.”
Since the Hoboken crash — which injured more than 100 people and killed a woman who was standing on the platform — many have raised concerns about the safety of New Jersey’s transit system.
Also on Friday, three Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee sent a letter to Foxx about the crash and “New Jersey’s blatant neglect of New Jersey Transit infrastructure and trains.”
The letter asked for details from a Federal Railroad Administration audit that is ongoing.
“At some point there is no excuse,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said at the news conference.
“And I find it inexcusable when there are 100,000 lives riding every day on New Jersey Transit lines, that we don’t have the top safety record — the record at one time we did have — that’s what we need to aspire to, not less.”