BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – New Jersey Transit, in perhaps an inevitable move Jan. 24, announced that it will be holding March 3-9 public hearings on their proposed 15 percent fare increases. Those increases, pending public feedback and a NJTransit Board of Directors vote, would take effect July 1.
Local bus riders have begun to notice the nation’s largest statewide public transportation carrier posting the 10 fare public hearings aboard their buses here Jan. 30. The announcement, in eight languages, listed the 10 week of March 3 hearing dates and times.
NJTransit executives said that they have a $106.6 million deficit on its Fiscal Year 2025 budget and larger deficits in the next year or two ahead. The fare hikes are part of a plan to attain $119 million for FY25 without cutting services.
The nation’s third largest public carrier, in its announcement, gave a background to their need for $119 million from the farebox:
- $30 million spent to take up “emergency service” on the former CoachUSA/Orange-Newark-Elizabeth, Decamp and Jersey Cities A&C bus routes April 7-Oct. 30.
- Increased costs among its contracted bus and rail services, including the Hudson Bergen Light Rail and RIVER Lines, ACCESS Link (using Uber and Lyft for some runs) and private bus carriers like CoachUSA (for the 709 Bloomfield-Paramus bus route) and Academy (who temporarily filled-in on the former Decamp Lines and parts of the Morris & Essex commuter rail line).
- Honoring collective bargaining contract agreements with 10,000 of NJTransit’s unionized employees. (NJTransit has 12,000 employees.)
- Healthcare and insurance costs are rising by 47 percent.
- 5 percent inflation increase since 2019 on fuel, materials.
The carrier, without elaboration, said it had saved $44 million in cost reductions and $55 million in “revenue enhancements.” It took a paragraph to list some recent improvements, including graduating 2,500 more railroad engineers, revamping the MyBus Mobile App, fully activating Positive Train Control in 2020 and expanding NJTransit Police presence.
The proposed July 1 fare increase would be the first since a nine percent hike was approved by the board of directors in 2015. It held off any projected fare increases during the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic. Post pandemic ridership, it said, has rebounded to 80 percent of 2019.
It should be noted that NJTransit, like other public transportation carriers, have exhausted their federal COVID funds as of 2022.
The agency has presumed that the state subsidy will remain flat at $142 million in FY24 for the next several years. That subsidy had fallen from $457 million given in FY 20. The state subsidy question opens several related ones.
The Regional Planning Association, of New York City, noted that NJTransit is the last public transportation carrier in the nation not to have a dedicated tax for funding. The State of New Jersey, despite claiming that it does not have dedicated taxes, have 23 on the books.
One tax off the books since Dec. 31 is the corporate business surcharge. The surcharge had brought in $1 billion in annual revenue before Gov. Phil Murphy (D-Rumson) allowed it to expire.
The following fare hikes mentioned are samples given by NJTransit. Please note that there are seven different one way base fares among the statewide system’s intrastate bus, interstate bus and light rail lines.
The proposed one way one zone bus, Newark Light Rail and RIVER Line fare is to go up from $1.60 to $1.80. A one way Hudson Bergen Light Rail Line fare, operated by 21st Century, is to rise from $2.25 to $2.55, and the ACCESS Link base fare is to go from $1.45 to $1.65.
Its commuter rail lines also get a 15-percent increase. NJTransit used its Northeast Corridor service (Amtrak owns the infrastructure) and Atlantic City Line for sample fare increases.
One way tickets on the NEC from Princeton Junction to New York Penn Station will rise from $16 to $18.40. One way riders from Philadelphia to Pennsauken on the ACL will go from $4.25 to $4.85.
The FLEXPASS pilot program, where riders could use tickets over a 10-day period, will end July 1. One way commuter rail tickets, July 1 onward, will expire in 30 days.
NJTransit, in its proposal, is asking for three percent annual systemwide fare increases starting with July 1, 2025. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, except for the 2020-22 COVID years by contrast, have fare hikes every two years – including public hearings beforehand.
The March 3-8 fare public hearings are to end at NJTransit Headquarters Boardroom, One Penn Plaza East, Newark 6-8 p.m.
Earlier ones nearest to Local Talk Land are March 7, 6-8 p.m. at Union’s Kean University North Avenue Academic Building, Room 606, 6th Floor,1000 Morris Ave.; and March 8, 10 a.m.-Noon at Secaucus’ Sen. Frank Lautenberg Secaucus Station, Long Hallway, County Road and County Avenue.
Comments for the record may be emailed to hearing@njtransit.com, online at www.njtransit.com/hearing or postal mailed to Public Hearing Office – Fare Proposal, One Penn Plaza East, 07105. There is an 11:59 p.m. March 8 filing deadline on all mediums.
Details may be found at NJTransit.com/hearings.
