BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – “Local Talk” wishes that you “eat, drink and be merry” this holiday season – for next season it will cost you more to get there.
Four public transportation agencies have you paying more for their tollways, trains, buses, bridges and tunnels as early as 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2025 and as distant as July 1 and Aug. 1.
The increases among New Jersey Transit, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (including the Garden State Parkway), The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority are talking about three percent hikes for the most part. The PANYNJ, in an exception, intends its airport and bus terminal vendors to pass along a 15-percent premium.
The agencies’ increases have either set them in stone earlier this month although a final December board hearing in one case and possible gubernatorial vetoes and/or pre-holiday court rulings in another make the cement still wet but hardening.
Herewith is an overview on who are making what kind of increases are happening when and where:
NJTRANSIT intends to make a three percent increase at 12:01 a.m. July 1 across all bus, light rail, commuter rail and Access A Ride services.
The base northern New Jersey intrastate one zone bus fare would go from $1.80 to a rounded down $1.85. (The statewide public carrier has different rate schedules for its Southern New Jersey and interstate buses plus the Hudson Bergen Light Rail and River Line.)
Similar discounted senior, student and handicapped fares will go from 85 cents to a rounded-up 90 cents. The monthly intrastate bus and light rail pass will go from $59 to a rounded-up $62.
The base one-way one-zone commuter rail ticket – like between Orange and Broad Street Newark stations on the Morris & Essex Line or between Newark Broad and Glen Ridge on the Montclair-Boonton Line will go from $2.55 to a rounded-up $2.60.
The $1.25 similar senior/student/handicapped fare will go up to $1.30. The monthly transit pass will go from $69 to a rounded-up $72.
This increase is part of a three-year fare table approved by the NJTransit Board of Directors May 15, 2024, including a 15 percent hike (the first in 17 years) effective July 1, 2024.
“Local Talk” is bringing up the 2024-26 fare table because the transit board included automatic annual “indexed” three percent increases. These tied-to-the-inflation-rate increases will not have preceding public hearings. Riders may complain about the hikes – but there will be no hearings to say so from.
The same three-year plan made rail, light rail and bus tickets bought but unused before June 1, 2024 expire on July 1. “Local Talk” reminds such ticket holders to mail them to NJTransit for a refund request with a postmark no later than Dec. 31. Tickets that miss that deadline will have only sentimental value.
The NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE AUTHORITY, including the Garden State Parkway, will be the first agency to take its bites on 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2025. Although the hikes average three percent or 16 cents, the exact costs vary by distance, vehicle used and/or the driver is paying cash or by E-ZPass or being billed by a license plate reader.
Turnpike tolls will go up 30 cents between its northern terminus with Interstate 80 and Interchange 13A for Newark Liberty International Airport, including the Newark Bay Extension.
There are no posted increases between Interchanges 13A and 7A (Washington Twp. – Pennsylvania Turnpike Extn.)
The increase rate is 10 cents between Interchanges 7A and 4 (Moorestown). The increase is 13 cents from Interchange 4 out to the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
The NJTA has the following increases on its 1990s adopted GSP:
Barrier Tolls – like Bloomfield’s Essex and Hillside’s Union – will go up by eight cents. Ramp Tolls – like those at Exit 148 in Bloomfield, Exit 145 in East Orange for Interstate 280, Exit 144 in Vailsburg-Newark and the Interstate 78 interchange in Irvington/Hillside/Union – are to go up by three cents.
NJTA’s Commissioners, in approving its fourth rate increase since 2020 on Nov. 19, said that this year’s toll projections had fallen, compared to last year, as of Oct. 31. The commissioners said that frequent spring rain flooding and a hot summer caused the shortfall. Governors of the two toll roads are also wanting to keep its 2024-28 capital improvement program, approved in 2020, on track.
The NJTA commissioners, like the NJTransit Board of Directors, employed “indexing” annual toll increases to inflation. You can complaint about them – but there will not be fare hearings to do so.
Gov. Phil Murphy (D-Rumson) has the power to veto the Jan. 1 hikes – as he did before last year’s general election. There is no indication whether he will use his veto pen before Dec. 31.
The PORT AUTHORITY of NY and NJ, pending a Dec. 12 final vote, is to employ a two-step increase plan in January. Its Board of Commissioners approved the plan’s introduction Nov. 12.
Motorists – including passenger bus drivers – will get their first 25-cent increase at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 5. on its six Hudson River and Staten Island crossings. Then the indexed increases will go up by a quarter through 2026.
The base PATH fare will increase from $2.75 to an even $3 at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 12. This first increase since 2014 makes a one-way fare more expensive than an MTA New York City Transit Authority subway ride for the second time in their 125-year shared history.
One “Local Talk” staff member recalls the PA installing signs at their crossings and PATH stations reading “Quarters Speed Your Trip.” in 1984. That was when the PA boosted the PATH fare to 75 cents and its bridge and tunnel tolls to $2 to meet a $5 billion 1984-89 capital spending plan.
The PA, this time, said that they are still recovering from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic while trying to meet its $9.4 billion capital plan projections. The capital projects include the PATH extension to Newark Airport and a new South Ward station, a new Newark Airport monorail and seed money for a new Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.
On one hand, the PA considering 50 percent discounts for handicapped riders or motorists. They, on the other hand, will allow businesses who lease retail space at Newark Airport and other facilities to pass along a 15 percent cost of goods and/or services above similar products outside the airports and/or bus terminals.
The Dec. 12 final decision may hinge on toll and fare hearings set for 7 p.m. Dec. 3 at the Hasbrouck Heights Meadowlands Hilton and 9 a.m. Dec. 5 at 2 Montgomery St. in Jersey City. Govs. Murphy and Kathy Hochul (D-Buffalo, N.Y,), as the bi-state agency’s co-leaders, may veto the plan. (There are no indications whether Murphy or Hochul will veto as of press time.)
The METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY have toll and fare increases projected for Jan. 5 and Aug. 1, 2025 – with the latter more easily explained.
In order to keep down operating deficits and upkeep its $19.9 billion capital budget, the MTA intends to raise the base NYC subway and local bus fare from $2.90 to $3 Aug. 1. That hike will draw their fare even with PATH’s.
New Jersey riders who use MTA-Metro North’s Port Jervis and Spring Valley service would be getting a three percent fare increase Aug. 1 should they start or end their trips in upstate New York. Those fares will not apply should they stay within NJTransit’s respective Bergen County Main Line and Pascack Valley Line stops.
Some of the MTA’s budgets are to be drawn from the 60th Street Congestion Pricing plan which was re-approved by the board Nov. 18 and the Federal Highway Administration Nov. 20. The plan, where motorists pay at least a once-daily $9 fee to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street from Jan. 5, is written on wet cement.
The FRA’s Nov. 20 green light is seen as a protection or hindrance to any of prospective USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy’s attempts to kill congestion pricing after Jan. 20. Duffy, like other President-Elect Donald Trump’s appointments, is subject to US Senate confirmation. Trump has said that he wanted to abort or kill CP.
The decades-in-making plan was set to start on July 1 when Gov. Hochul, for either economic or political reasons, paused its implementation June 5 – Nov. 14. Its advocates say that traffic and air pollution below 60th Street would be lessened, emergency vehicles and buses would run swifter and the proceeds would go to handicapped access, the Second Avenue Subway Extension and other MTA-NYCTA projects.
Opponents – including Murphy and Cong. Josh Gottheimer (D-Fair Lawn) – may well have filed petitions to halt and/or kill the plan. They are saying that the air pollution will shift to their own jurisdictions and that it is an “MTA money grab.”
“Local Talk” wishes you safe holiday travel “over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house.”
