New Jersey Transit has decided not to reactivate commuter rail service on a branch of the Montclair Line, after canceling the service in September 2002, when a rail link was completed to allow Midtown Direct service into Manhattan.

NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington said reopening the lower Boonton line, which served 800 riders a day, would be too expensive, requiring $26 million in immediate track, signal, bridge and other repair work, plus another $46 million in capital spending over 10 years. And, Warrington said, the line would cost $3 million a year to operate, while taking in just $108,000 in fares.

Nonetheless, Warrington said he would appoint a panel to look into improving bus service in the area of Glen Ridge, Bloomfield and Kearny, where service was closed at three stations along the 11-mile lower Boonton line, which ran from Hoboken to Glen Ridge.

The New York & Greenwood Lake Railroad, a small freight carrier that operates on a separate line, joined with inconvenienced commuters in a lawsuit that forced NJ Transit to hold a public hearing on the station closings in February.

Despite support for the reopening expressed at the hearing, however, Warrington issued his decision on Friday with a statement that, "the economics just don't work."

New York & Greenwood Lake's owner, Jim Wilson, who as a youth shined shoes at Glen Ridge's Rowe Street Station, said Monday that he will now submit a plan to the state Department of Transportation seeking permission to operate his own, independent passenger line on the lower Boonton branch.

Wilson, who leases Rowe Street's tiny 1888 Victorian station