(The following article by Dan Newman was posted on the Atlanticville Independent website on September 14.)
NEWARK, N.J. — With gas prices soaring over $3 per gallon since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, many are feeling lighter in their pockets.
But it’s not only ordinary motorists driving to school, work and elsewhere who are feeling the pinch. There will come a point, most likely in the near future, when public transportation companies will start to notice the difference in their bottom lines.
While the nation’s drivers continue to watch the cost of gas skyrocket, some local transportation companies say they do not plan on passing the buck to their riders — yet.
“We recently had a fare increase, and so even with the cost of gas being what it is lately, I do not foresee a raise in our rates,” said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit.
Stessel said that NJT’s overall ridership is up about 12 percent from just a few weeks ago. While some of that increase could be attributable to gas prices, he said, there are other factors involved.
“Now that the summer is over, in particular the Labor Day weekend, and the fact that the economy is improving, thus more people are commuting to New York, these are things that have helped our numbers,” Stessel said. “At this point, we do not have any solid numbers to indicate that the gas prices are the only thing that is making more people utilize our services.”
Along the same lines, Pat Smith, a spokeswoman for NY Waterways, a privately run ferry service that operates out of the Belford section of Middletown, said that the company does not have any concrete indications as to why more people have recently been traveling via sea.
“We have had slight increases [in ridership] — about 100 people more per day from Belford to New York City,” Smith said. “People are back from a long summer of traveling out of the area, and so that could be part of it, but it’s also feasible that the price of gas has something to do with it. You can’t blame people for wanting to save a few bucks by using the ferry instead of paying crazy prices at the pump.”
Just within the last week, acting Gov. Richard Codey announced that the Division of Consumer Affairs’ Office of Weights and Measures and Office of Consumer Protection visited about 400 gas stations statewide, finding more than 100 violations of state regulations. The most common violation was for prices being raised more than once every 24 hours.
“I have no tolerance for opportunists who try to make money during this national crisis,” Codey said. “The public should continue to call either the state or their local Office of Weights and Measures and report their concerns.”
Although NJ Transit and NY Waterways have been able to put their customers at ease by not demanding rate increases in the near future, the Hazlet School District recently received correspondence from one of the bus companies it deals with asking the district for more money in the wake of the ongoing gas crisis.
“Murphy Bus … sent us a letter, saying that they were feeling a pinch and requested another $22,000-$32,000 for their services,” Schools Business Administrator Christopher Mullins said. “There’s no way we’re going to give it to them, as we have a signed contract with them for an already agreed upon price, prior to all of the increases happening.”
Attempts to reach representatives from the Middletown-based company were unsuccessful.
Mullins said the request is similar to a familiar practice in the sports world.
“When a player is on a roll, he almost always asks for more money from his team. It’s a common thing to do,” Mullins said. “But when a player goes on a cold streak do you ever see him offer to give back some money? That’s what this is like right now. We’re all feeling the crunch. Yet so are we as a school district. It’s not like we can get extra money from the state all of a sudden.”