BY WALTER ELLIOTT
WEST ORANGE – Commuters on the Community Coach 77, since June 11, have entered a new tunnel other than their accustomed Lincoln Tunnel.
Riders who have been used to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the Weehawken helix at the ends, do not know how long this new tunnel is and what will be at the other end.
Community Coach 77’s parent, CoachUSA, had entered voluntary Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy in Wilmington, Del. federal court June 11. CoachUSA and its ownership, Variant Equity Advisors, of Los Angeles, is asking the bankruptcy court judge to allow them to sell off parts of its commuter and charter lines across North America.
CoachUSA’s selling off of a majority of its assets will dismantle what has been North America’s single largest bus carrier. The winning bidder or bidders may give Community Coach 77, local Community Transport buses and/or the budget Megabus service a very different look.
Who gets some or all of Community Coach 77, whose West Orange to Midtown Manhattan via Orange / East Orange Main Street / Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard dates back to the 1920s, has not been set as of press time. One source, on June 12, said that Renco Group-Bus Holdings US LLC, of Manhattan, has agreed to purchase “certain assets of Community Coach.”
Nor is it known whether “CC77” will continue to operate from CoachUSA’s Paramus garage. The private carrier has also put ShortLine’s base and fellow Rockland Tours there up for sale. Renco has reportedly “agreed to purchase some of its lines, including ShortLine (including Chenango Valley Bus Lines) and Rockland.”
This bankruptcy – not liquidation – sale is going on at 26 other metropolitan areas in the U.S. and Canada affecting 2,700 employees. CoachUSA is seeking to plug or settle up to $200 million dollars in debt amassed since the March 2020 COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.
CoachUSA, in its bankruptcy filings, claims it owes creditors $197.8 million in liabilities among 1,000 to 5,000 creditors against between $100 and $500 million in assets. Although it, like most private bus carriers, received some federal COVID relief aid, ridership first dropped to 90 percent.
CoachUSA’s overall ridership rebounded to 45 percent of pre pandemic levels — but has also seen inflationary pressure in fuel, and other supplies, property rent and employee retention plus higher interest rates. The almost $198 million owed includes a $37 million loan from the federal Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act.
It has meanwhile received $20 million in debtor-in-possession financing to keep running its buses as usual. It intends to pay all vendors and suppliers in full.
“(CoachUSA) is operating as normal and remains focused on operating safely and serving customers in the U.S. and Canada,” said Coach CEO Derrick Waters that Tuesday. “Our top priority remains safely carrying the millions of passengers who choose our buses each year and working closely with our valued contract customers and transportation agency partners. We appreciate the dedication of our employees to operating with safety as a priority and serving our customers and our communities.”
Renco also intends to buy Megabus Retail and “the Megabus intellectual property and retail operations.” Coach has been operating Megabus from its First Street, Elizabeth garage since 2006. It is the same garage where Coach has based its Newark Airport Express shuttles to Manhattan – and had last quartered its Orange-Newark-Elizabeth division’s 24, 31 and 44 routes.
After several decades, CoachUSA stopped running ONE’s 24, 31 and 44 routes Oct. 7, 2023. ONE, after recent route cuts, had stopped all of its Sunday and Labor Day service July 7.
CoachUSA had recently decided not to renew its contract with NJTransit to operate the latter’s local Bergen and Passaic county bus routes from Coach’s Allwood, Clifton garage. Coach, as Community Transport, runs the 705 Passaic-Wayne route via Montclair State University and the 709 Bloomfield-Paramus route.
CoachUSA selling off Community Coach 77 is the latest in a 14-month pattern of private bus line cuts and withdrawals.
DeCamp, of Montclair, stopped its commuter service after 153 years April 7, 2023. NJTransit has since picked up all but two of DeCamp’s routes and is running bare bones “emergency service” on the remainder.
NJTransit also absorbed the ex-ONE 24, 31 and 44 routes, maintaining pre-July 7 service. The nation’s largest statewide public carrier had estimated the cost of picking up DeCamp, ONE and Jersey City’s A&C Lines last year at $22 million. (That figure includes contracting Academy Bus to run some of the 24 route.)
The State Legislature, in response, passed a regulation where private bus carriers must give a 90-day advance notice if they are to severely cut or end fixed passenger route service. Neither CoachUSA, nor any potential suitors, have posted such notices as of press time.
What is now Community Coach 77 had been operated by several private companies under Public Service/NJTransit charter. DeCamp bought the charter in the 1920s but sold it to an independent company in 1977.
Community Coach 77 expanded its service west to Livingston Mall and Morristown – which CoachUSA cut back in pre-pandemic times.
Some readers may remember a July 2012 public meeting called by the mayors in Livingston and West Orange, to redress CC77 rider complaints. The then-CC77 general manager received a 288-signature petition about erratic service before an audience of 150 and State Assembly members John McKeon (D-West Orange) and Mila Jasey (D-South Orange).
Livingston Township, for a while, ran a commuter van shuttle bus to South Orange’s village center station from Labor Day 2012.
Going by Community Coach 77 Riders Facebook page, riders have since had ebbs and flows of improvements and service woes.
Variant Equity Advisors bought CoachUSA from its StagecoachUSA United Kingdom owners in 2019 for $270 million. Most of that $270 million was debt that was on the books.
Yankee Coach’s Boxcar division is meanwhile conducting a survey of CC&&-area riders, including those in West and South Orange. The Boston outfit has been running New York rush hour service from Maplewood and South Orange railroad stations since 2021.
