BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – New Jersey Transit’s bus and light rail riders have been joining their commuter rail counterparts in searching for unused and undated paper tickets in their wallets and desk drawers – or should be – before July 1.
NJTransit has recently said that their revised paper ticket “use by” and refund policies for its eight commuter rail line customers also applies to those on their bus and light rail divisions.
Riders at the Irvington Bus Terminal, since May 2, saw country’s largest statewide public passenger carrier add its “This Applies to You, Too” message on its rolling destination board.
Tickets printed from July 1 will have 30-day expiration dates. Unused undated tickets are to be used before July 1. FlexPASS tickets will be discontinued July 31.
The Irvington Terminal posting followed what NJTransit spokesman Jim Smith confirmed to “Local Talk” the day before:
“The expiration dates will apply to all one-way paper bus, light rail and train tickets,” said Smith. “Tickets will have expiration dates printed on them. We strongly encourage customers to use any tickets they have purchased before July 31 as all tickets without expiration dates printed on them will expire on that date (July 31.)”
NJTransit’s Board of Directors had passed the original expiration date provision along with its 15 percent across the board fare increase, to take effect July 1, at their April 10 board meeting. Expiring unused and undated tickets and setting a 30-day use by window was part of the price increase package put forward in March 3-9 public hearings.
The third largest public transit agency in the country estimate they would save $25 million with the revisions. They would not set aside around $25 million for refund requests and keep the value left on unused tickets.
NJTransit last made a nine percent fare increase in 2009. While all paper tickets back then were not refundable, they could be used like the United States Postal Service’s “Forever” stamps – until now.
Pressure from State Sen. John McKeon (D-West Orange) and other legislators yielded a refund policy revision or concession from NJTransit on May 15.
NJTransit has opened its ticket refund window to holders of unused and undated tickets printed before July 1 between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31. Those said tickets found from Jan. 1, 2025 will lose all but sentimental value.
Commuters and infrequent riders are now faced with using up the undated paper tickets they have saved for emergencies or for special trips. One may have to move up that visit to Uncle Charlie and Aunt Pat in Middletown or keep exact fare cash on hand if you forgot to bring your monthly or weekly pass.
The revisions also mean that FlexPASS tickets will no longer be printed after June 30.
FlexPASS, a pilot program that started in 2022, allowed a two week time period to use several same destination tickets at a discount. NJTransit started FlexPASS to recover some of the ridership it had lost to two- or three- days a week commuters or “work from home” remote employees.
Sally Jane Gilbert, Chairperson of the Millburn-based Lackawanna Coalition rider advocacy group, sees as much red in eliminating FlexPASS as she does with the 30-day use period.
“We also recognize that FlexPASS is important to workers who go into the office less than five days a week,” commented Gilbert in the group’s May/June 2024 Railgram,” “but see that a discount used primarily in rush hours is not optimal for the agency, with more empty seats off-peak, we would prefer to see a volume discount for those times.”
NJTransit’s overall ridership, reflecting most other public agencies across the country, has rebounded to 80 percent ridership levels of the pre-2020 COVID era. The carrier had suspended ticket sales for several months during 2020.
Gilbert, in her same commentary, said that all but commuters will have to think and plan ahead of their ticket purchases or risk losing money. She cited the practice of one of the coalition members who is eligible for senior or disabled be required to discount tickets. That person tended to stock up on two or three months’ worth of tickets when she is able to visit an NJTransit ticket office.
“With the 30-day expiration, she would be required to guess how many tickets she would use within 30 days or risk cancellation if she fell ill for a few days or worked from home more often than usual,” said Gellert. “She would likely switch to buying a few at a time, meaning she would have to plan trips to the ticket office more frequently.”
“Local Talk” asked NJTransit about what would happen if visiting Uncle Charlie and Aunt Pat if they lived in Middletown, NY. NJTransit operates the Suffern-Port Jervis, NY part of its Bergen County Mail Line under contract for the MTA Metro North Railroad.
“Any ticket with a Metro North origin or destination,” replied Smith, “will follow Metro North expiration rules.”
Metro North’s expiration and refund policies are different from NJTransit.
Tickets on its “Port Jervis Service,” like the other MTA commuter rail lines, have printed expiration dates – but one can apply for refunds up to two years after the “use by” dates.
The MTA, however, applies a “$10 Administrative Fee” to each refund request. The $10 are deducted from your refund if the refunded money is $10 or more. The MTA, by inference, considers refund requests of less than $10 not worth their time.
One could avoid the $0 fee if one submits a refund request at an open Metro North station.
Metro North also has Peak Fares and Off-Peak Fares, based on whether trains are heading to Hoboken or Penn Station New York 7-9:30 a.m. or leaving Hoboken PSNY 4-7 p.m. on regular weekdays.
One may want to have an unused undated ticket scanned “price check” style at an open NJTransit rail station before applying for refunds. NJTransit train staff and more recently, buses and light rail kiosks have optical QR code readers. “Local Talk” thought of this after finding a PSNY-Madison paper ticket discarded at Maplewood Station.
“Local Talk” did not ask about the paper “One-Way Courtesy Ride (for) Bus, Rail Subway or HBLR (Hudson Bergen Light Rail)” tickets. These tickets, which never carried a QC code or magnetic stripe, is usually given to individuals who have just been freed from prison.
