It was a chilly Wednesday afternoon in February, and the outdoor River Line platform at Trenton Transit Center was surprisingly full of passengers of all ages, clad in warm winter clothing. At 2:10 p.m., I boarded the Camden-bound River Line train.
At the time of its inception, many said the line was doomed to fail, born of political pressures which ignored public input and landed the train in an unlikely place: the edge of the Delaware River, where it raised housing prices in cities and lowered them elsewhere. But over 20 years later, the train is still chugging along.
As someone interested in transit — I can name most global transit systems by looking at their maps — I was curious to discover what this train was all about. How better to learn than to take it myself?
The River Line Platform at Trenton Transit Center
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko / The Daily Princetonain
Smaller than its more familiar compatriots, such as Amtrak’s Northeast Regional and NJ Transit’s Northeast Corridor Line, the NJ Transit River Line (stylized River LINE) is a two-car light rail. It begins at the Trenton Transit Center, running one hour seven minutes and 34 miles along the Delaware to the Camden Entertainment Center.
Using light rail for intercity travel is unique among global transit systems. Typically, light rail is used for much shorter trips on intra-urban systems, as fuel costs are lower, something that translates to cheaper tickets on the River Line.
And cheaper tickets is a good thing, considering that the River Line is a commuter route. Senior Public Information Officer for NJ Transit Kyalo Mulumba explained that the River Line is designed to connect people to work and other opportunities in Trenton, Camden, and Philadelphia.
“The goal of the River LINE is to provide mass transit options to municipalities along the Delaware River,” Mulumba said.
But the River Line was a long time coming. The line’s original route was meant to run across the street from State Senator C. William Haines’ house, through an area of New Jersey that was conflicted about its presence: Some counties supported it enthusiastically, while others strongly opposed the idea of having a new train line so close to their homes. The Senator later proposed a feasibility study to be conducted on the River LINE, advocating to have its northern leg run along the Delaware River, as opposed to central Burlington County.
“The Haines proposal marked the first time a river route was considered — and ignored years of careful planning by transit consultants,” wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The line was eventually implemented along the Delaware River, opening in 2004, where it runs today. Light rail transit, as defined by the Transportation Research Board, is an electric railway system that operates smaller train cars with low floors. Unlike its peers, the River Line operates on diesel, commonly used in passenger rail.
New Jersey’s Delaware River municipalities are not unique in developing light rail over old freight infrastructure. In the UK, when cargo ships became too big to reach London via the Thames River, Transport for London used old cargo tracks in its Docklands area to develop the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). The River Line employed a similar strategy by using old freight tracks when it opened in 2004.
When the train departed at 2:27 p.m., I counted 18 passengers in my car, including a family with two children, a young man with a suitcase who I later discovered was en route to visit his girlfriend, a sleeping woman wearing AirPods, and two backpack-carrying teens.
Emily Cooper, a Palmyra resident and frequent River Line user, said she frequently uses the line to travel with her son. “It was really accessible, the platforms, [the] ticketing,” she said. “People are pretty respectful when you have a kid for the most part.”
Cooper, who grew up in the area, also noted the line provided her freedom as a teenager. “It gave me access to a lot of cultural experiences that I didn’t have over in Jersey,” she said.
Cooper also took the train to commute to her job. She noted when she used it to commute to Philadelphia, it was her “favorite commute ever” for work. The only downside was the timing of the connections when she attended Montclair State University, which required two transfers.
Still, the line has relatively light ridership, taking a dip after the pandemic. According to Mulumba, between July and September 2024, the line averaged just over 6,000 boardings per weekday or “roughly 69% of pre-COVID levels.” The line is not alone — transit networks across the country have struggled to recoup pre-pandemic ridership.
In comparison to the River Line, NJT’s Hudson-Bergen Light Rail serves more than 48,000 daily riders. Despite the River Line’s low ridership, about half the seats in my car that Wednesday afternoon were taken: the train did not feel too big, and on my journey back, the train was packed.
Dr. Michael Lahr, a professor emeritus at Rutgers, used to commute on the River Line daily. In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ he highlighted its convenience due to its high service frequency, and said that he found it easier than driving.
Lahr explained that the inexpensive nature of light rail makes its implementation easier to justify.
“You don’t need the densities that you need on a heavy rail line like the Northeast Corridor,” he said. Lower population density generally corresponds to lower transit ridership in the area, meaning that a smaller and less expensive train is easier to justify as it will bring in less revenue from fewer riders.
According to Lahr, the River Line is also cost-effective. “It’s a much more efficient system,” he said, explaining that highways tend to be more expensive for the amount of passengers given accidents and pollution. “Not to mention the road itself, [and] not including the private costs of driving a car, which is insurance and your automobile,” he added.
Mulumba explained that the choice to use light rail was based on studies done at the time regarding ridership, as well as the operational and cost efficiency to which Lahr referred.
While the line and public transit in general have saved money for riders, commuters have noticed recent fare increases. New Jersey Transit recently hiked fares by 15 percent on July 1, 2024, and will increase fares three percent each subsequent year.
River Line riders have noticed. On my trip, I overheard one older man say to another: “Why’d they up the prices so much on everything?”
“Because they had to!” the other replied.
According to NJ Transit, fares were increased due to inflation, which impacted fuel costs and materials, as well as an increase in operating costs and wages related to labor collective bargaining agreements. Overall, according to the American Public Transportation Association, a household saves over $13,000 per year by using public transportation and rather than one additional car.
Self-service payment kiosk at Trenton Transit Center
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko / The Daily Princetonian
At around 2:53 p.m., the train went through Burlington Towne Center, and I observed the largest exchange of passengers yet. At this point, the train’s demographic composition became noticeably more white. Burlington Township is over 43 percent white, compared to Trenton’s 19 percent.
Burlington Town Centre’s downtown, unlike other stops on the line, is filled with pedestrians, brightly colored houses, and small businesses — all walking distance from the train station. The site of one of NJ Transit’s “Transit Villages,” a program that incentivizes New Jersey municipalities to “redevelop or revitalize the areas around transit stations using design standards of transit-oriented development (TOD).”
New Jersey defines TOD as development projects around transit that encourage people to use transit, walk, or bike. By reducing overall amounts of driving, TOD has been shown to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, make cities more resilient to climate change, and create cleaner air quality.
View from the train in Burlington
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko / The Daily Princetonian
The proximity of the train to the township also leads to car accidents, because the train runs through the streets as opposed to on a separate track. The most recent such accident, in October, injured five people.
As the train hurtled towards Camden, park-and-ride stations — those surrounded by parking lots designed for commuters to drive to — became more frequent. Only two stations on the River Line are designated as transit villages: Burlington and Riverside. While other stations, particularly in Trenton and Camden, are surrounded by similar housing, commercial, and recreational development, this is less true for suburban communities.
As my train arrived to Camden, a billboard referencing the Port Authority Transit Cooperation of Philadelphia (PATCO) reads:
Why wait in traffic?
Easy come, easy go
PATCO
Lahr cited avoiding traffic as part of the reason he commuted on the River Line. “Sometimes my 45-minute commute could be an hour and a half or two hours on a Friday night,” he said, referring to when he would drive instead of taking the train.
Another impact of interurban light rail in New Jersey is on property values in the area. According to a study at Rutgers, properties in the area decreased in value after the line was first announced, presumably due to construction. However, after the line became operational, prices rose again, though not always enough to offset the negative impact of construction.
This impact differed based on area. Almost all properties within a mile of stations are within low-income census tracts, and those properties experienced large increases in property values.
For those living in wealthier areas, however, the study found that although property values decreased after the River Line was announced and became operational, this effect was less pronounced at stations with surface parking lots, presumably due to the fact that wealthier residents are more likely to own cars and drive to the train.
In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ one of the study’s authors, Stephanie DiPetrillo, attested that this depressed economic impact could be fixable. While she explained that the idea of an enormous economic impact is “far-fetched” due to the nature of the line “connecting two weak economic markets,” she also said that towns along the line, as well as Trenton and Camden, could create more desirable developments around transit stations to heighten the line’s economic impact.
View of the Delaware River from the train.
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko / The Daily Princetonian
“If the area around the Trenton Transit Center … were [more developed], you would find people wanting to be on the River Line in order to be in close proximity to the Trenton Transit Center. And I think the same thing holds true for Camden,” she said.
Part of the problem, according to DiPetrillo, is resistance to development along the line itself in the way that the towns of Burlington or Riverside have developed. Some communities, she said, are uninterested in developing new housing or other projects.
“They’re not interested in people that they don’t think are already part of their communities being there, and they see the River Line as a way that people can come into their communities and be bad actors,” she said.
DiPetrillo noted that in focus groups, some residents said that the line “brings crime.” However, she explained that other residents found the line “incredibly useful” and appreciated their ability to drive less, and this rhetoric was split even amongst residents from similar backgrounds.
According to Cooper, “there’s been a lot of rhetoric around the train.”
“People will refer to people that come into town from outside of town as ‘the river line people.’ It kind of feels loaded, because when they talk about ‘river line people,’ they’re [talking about] the people from Camden and Trenton who are bringing drugs into our community,” she said. “It’s really gross, actually, the rhetoric that I see about the train.”
Still, Cooper recognizes that the train has had an important role in connecting New Jersey towns. “I think it’s pretty useful, and I appreciate that it’s here for me and for my community,” she said.
The train slowly snaked through Camden’s Walter Rand Transportation Center, Rutgers-Camden’s campus, past the aquarium, and eventually came to a stop at the Entertainment Center. Almost all the passengers disembarked at Walter Rand or Rutgers, leaving me alone on the train — along with a couple violently making out. I felt very awkward. At the Entertainment Center, I got off the train and attempted to interview the train driver, who, as a government employee, declined to comment.
After disembarking, I took a short walk in the surrounding area, which was mostly parking lots and a concrete riverside park. Contrasting with the lively scenes around Walter Rand and Rutgers-Camden, the streets at the very end of the line were deserted: Besides the idle activity at the station, not another person was in the vicinity of the Entertainment Center station other than a lone cop. The concrete riverside park provided a view of Philadelphia across the river, the train pulling its way back on its passage to Trenton.
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko is the accessibility director and a Features contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com
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