NEWARK — Citing a looming $300 million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year, NJ TRANSIT on Friday, March 5 released a proposal to increase fares by 25 percent system-wide and trim service proportionate to recent ridership declines.
Under the proposal, a one-zone local bus trip ticket would increase from $1.35 to $1.70 per ride. A one-way fare from Cape May to Philadelphia would rise from $18.25 to $22.75.
One-way commuter rail tickets would increase about 25 percent, subject to rounding. Rail ticket prices vary based on distance, but a one-way fare from Atlantic City to Philadelphia would rise from $8 to $10, and for a monthly pass from $227 to $284.
“We recognize that any increase is a burden for our customers, particularly during a re-cession,” stated Executive Director Jim Weinstein in a release. “However, we have worked to keep local bus fares below the regional average ($2.25 in New York, $2 in Philadelphia) and preserved some important discounts for seniors and people with disabilities, as well as for students and others who are among the most transit dependent.”
Commuters will be able to continue to take advantage of discounted travel by purchasing monthly passes, which in many cases provide a discount of 25 percent or more off full fares. The plan also continues interchangeable features that allow customers to connect between trains and buses without paying additional costs. However, off-peak roundtrip discounts—used today by about 17 percent of rail customers—would be eliminated and 10-trip bus dis-counts would be capped at 15 percent off the full fare price.
The plan calls for most of the changes to take effect May 1, 2010, and NJ TRANSIT ex-pects to generate more than $140 million in revenue. The agency pointed out that with the proposed increase, fares will be 3 percent lower than they were in Fiscal Year 1991, based on inflation-adjusted dollars.
On the service side, NJ TRANSIT set a goal of reducing service proportionate to ridership, which has declined systemwide by about four percent as a result of the economy and low fuel prices.
In all, the agency proposes to eliminate 32 of 725 commuter trains, with at least two trains scheduled for elimination on each of the system’s 11 lines. A few lines will see a handful of trains cut, mostly those that today have the greatest service frequency, such as the Northeast Corridor, which is slated for a reduction of five weekday trains.
Morris and Essex line service would be reduced by seven trains on weekdays (four are off-peak), as ridership to Hoboken has declined faster than ridership to New York. Since Fiscal Year 2009, rail ridership to New York has declined about three percent, while ridership to Hoboken declined 13 percent.
“Our service plan is designed to size our service to match ridership demand,” said Wein-stein. ‘We also looked at where we could squeeze out the most costs while impacting as few customers as possible.”
Under the plan, bus customers would experience reduced service frequency on about 50 routes systemwide. In most instances, the interval between bus arrival times will grow by a range of five to 20 minutes. NJ TRANSIT’s proposal also calls for service to be discontinued on three NJ TRANSIT bus routes (nos. 68, 134 and 138) and several local routes operated by private carriers. In addition, WHEELS minibus service would be discontinued in all counties. WHEELS is a legacy program that has exhausted its original federal funding to connect people to transit rail stations, and is underutilized in most areas, particularly in ru-ral parts of the state.
“I look forward to hearing the feedback personally from our customers at the public hear-ings because we need to understand the on-the-ground impacts for folks, not just how this works on paper,” stated Weinstein.
Public hearings are scheduled in 11 locations across the system from March 25-27.
The information sessions closest to Cape May County will be held March 27 at the Atlan-tic City Rail Terminal lobby, One Atlantic City Expressway, Atlantic City.
For information: www.njtransit.com/budget
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