A Look at Public Transportation in Cape May County

COURT HOUSE – New Jersey Transit’s (NJT) annual financial statements boast that its network of trains and buses represents the “largest statewide transit system in the United States.” 
Residents of Cape May County can be excused if they don’t fully appreciate that fact. The South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization (SJTPO) understates the reality when it admits that NJT’s “fixed-route bus network in Cape May County is not extensive.”
Why the dichotomy? What makes this area so lightly served by NJT and so dependent on the county’s Fare Free Transportation system?
In the jargon of transportation professionals, the concern of moving people through public transportation is part of a Human Services Transportation Plan.
Anyone attempting to look at such planning for public transportation is immediately confronted with a vast array of alphabet soup organizations and funding sources. Transportation planning must coordinate federal, state, regional and local funding sources, a myriad of service providers and transportation infrastructure with varying ownership and oversight responsibilities.
It is a planning process that, in many ways, places the county at a disadvantage.
Infrastructure
Projects make their way to the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) through a process that conforms to federal regulations controlling the distribution of federal funds. 
Regional planning is organized through Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO). Ultimately, the overall planning process dictates how money is spent.
For Cape May County, the MPO is the SJTPO. This agency has oversight of transportation planning activities for the four-county region of Salem, Cumberland, Atlantic and Cape May counties. This includes planning for Human Services Transportation.
The region represents one-quarter of the state in square miles, yet in terms of permanent population, the region is less than 7% of the state total. Rural, lightly-populated South Jersey does not have the first claim on transportation funds even though its “transportation disadvantaged” population has few public transportation options.
Fixed-route service in Cape May County is dependent on four regular bus routes operated by NJT, with a fifth that is added between June and September. Travel to Atlantic City, a transportation hub of NJT, connects to other options
Transportation plans for the region, drawn up half a decade ago, identify the same needs: increased hours on weekends, along with more frequent earlier morning and later evening service for people using the transportation network to get to and from work.
In addition to the fixed-route service, many residents depend upon demand response service providers where a fixed route and schedule are replaced by a more flexible system that tries to accommodate passenger reservations and requests.
The largest demand response provider in the county is Fare Free Transportation, which is run by the county. Operating on a roughly $1.5 million annual budget, Fare Free Transportation has almost 40 paratransit vehicles with wheelchair lifts. The service runs as many as 500 trips a day and covers over a million miles a year.
While most of those miles are within the county, trips involve travel to Atlantic City, Cooper Hospital, in Camden, Philadelphia and the Veterans Affairs Hospital, in Wilmington. The service is part of the Meals on Wheels program.
In 2017, Cape May County’s Fare Free Transportation was awarded “Outstanding Transportation System of the Year” by New Jersey Council on Special Transportation. The service faces an increasing burden in a county underserved by other public transportation options.
This is evident in the various points in SJTPO plans where needs are identified, with the comment that the need may have to be satisfied through the county’s Fare Free Transportation system.
There are other providers of transportation services in the county, a number of them; however, they tend to be organized around non-profit organizations or health providers, and have targeted populations that they serve. For many of them, the task is getting clients to and from medical treatment or social service locations.
Survey of Needs
As part of a 2015 Human Services Transportation Plan, SJTPO surveyed its four-county region. Cape May and Cumberland counties provided the most responses.
The picture of those most dependent on public transportation services was not surprising.
Well over half had incomes of less than $15,000. One in five had no valid driver’s license and another 41% lived in a household in which there was only one person with such a license; 41% had no working vehicle.
Asked about the primary need for transportation services, almost half said getting to and from work, while an additional 22% said for access to medical services. A full quarter of those who responded cited losing a job due to transportation issues.
Over half of those who responded needed transportation multiple times a week.
The conclusions displayed the same needs as other studies. Expand the service areas to provide access to more points and increase the service frequency, not just in the summer.
What Holds Back State Funding?
Transportation assessments all point to the same issues concerning this area of South Jersey. Funding formulas, tied to permanent population levels, underfund areas like Cape May County. These funding formulas fail to recognize that many local transportation needs are driven by a huge spike in the seasonal population.
When taking the small permanent population as a base, the region’s share of state transportation funds is below the region’s share of the state population. 
From 2004 through 2015, the distribution of regional state Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and NJT funds saw 79.1% of the money go to North Jersey projects. Another 15.5% was allocated to the New Jersey Philadelphia suburbs. That left 5.4% for all of the four-county South Jersey region.   
The other issue often given for not funding improvement in the region’s transportation infrastructure and service is that “the estimated cost of improvement projects continues to outpace the available funding.”
The often-cited example of cost outpacing available funds is the extension of Route 55, identified as critical to reducing seasonal congestion, improving safety on routes in high crash areas and as an evacuation route for county residents and visitors in the event of a natural disaster.
What is true of a road project like Route 55 is also true of public transit extensions. When one looks at reports on projected projects through 2025, 84% are dedicated to preserving and maintaining the existing transportation system. 
That means that most of the money goes annually to keeping what exists running and working. Less than 1% of the statewide 2016 transportation plan was allocated to NJT expansion.  
Those same reports note that South Jersey regional transportation needs are “closely linked to tourism and seasonally-based population and economic flows,” yet they also state that while seasonal and weekend population shifts impact transportation issues, “It is the relatively small, and in some cases declining, population that impacts transportation funding.”
For the “transportation disadvantaged” year-round resident seeking better public transportation options, expansion of state-funded services is not a likely solution.
Projections are Important
A 2016 SJTPO projection showed Atlantic County likely to see significant population growth through 2040. It saw some growth expected in Cumberland County, with Salem County declining by just over 2%. In those projections, Cape May County was expected to lose another 15% of its permanent population.
These types of projections guide the distribution of funds.   
Those seeking more public transportation service routes are not helped by the fact that NJT bus ridership is declining. NJT reports show a decline statewide of just under 5% between 2015 and 2017. For South Jersey, the same report shows a drop of 14%.
It also is no help that Federal Transit Administration (FTA) data, released in 2018, showed NJT buses had the seventh-worst record in the nation for breakdowns. The buses fared better than the trains, which had the top spot in the nation in terms of breakdowns.
What those FTA figures mean is that more dollars go to maintaining a strained and aging system than on expanding service.
Needs Remain the Same
The reports that document citizen input on public transportation all have the same recommendations – increase the service to the regional hub in Atlantic City, add more weekend options for county public transportation riders and extend hours for earlier morning and later evening transit service.
How to achieve those public needs with the current funding formulas and countervailing demands is the challenge.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.