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I moved to Jersey City about 2 weeks ago and for work have been taking the Hudson Bergen Light Rail.
In literally 2 weeks, I have already experienced a door breakdown. As in, because the stations I go between have different style platforms (home is side platforms, work is an island platform), I enter and exit on opposite sides of the train, and the door on the opposite side just wasn't functional. These are Kinki Sharyo trains from 1999. I lived in Montreal before this and never once saw a door not fucking open, even on the 50 year old MR-63s. What the fuck??
I'm also not a fan that the middle section of the 5-section trains has offset doors. Combine that with the narrow aisles inside and rush hour crowding, and there's a good chance I miss my stop if I get on there and can't shove my way through everyone. (Lesson learned though, avoid the middle segment.)
They definitely need to upgrade the entire system to use CBTC and up the frequencies. That and actually focus on on-time performance (ostensibly at around 6pm trains should be running every 6-15 minutes or so, but I had to wait 35 minutes, during which time 5 trains went the other way, for a train last Thursday). I'm thinking trains every 6 minutes during peak hours and no more than 15 off-peak. If they do that, then they should definitely be CONSISTENT with their frequency (looking at the schedule right now, there are points in the day where consecutive gaps between trains are 5, 15, 11, and 15 minutes), and they should stagger the scheduling of the lines that way in parts where the lines run together (so if 6 minute headways during peak hours, then where lines overlap, stations see trains every 3 minutes in one direction).
