(The following article by Shannon D. Harrington was posted on the Bergen Record website on December 14.)
BERGEN, N.J. — Efforts by NJ Transit to boost the number of riders in Bergen County, particularly on weekends, appear to be paying off.
The transit agency said Tuesday that passenger counts on its Main and Bergen County lines increased nearly 13 percent from July through September, compared with the same period last year.
The increase is even larger on weekends, when the Bergen County trains historically have seen anemic passenger totals when compared with other lines.
NJ Transit Executive Director George Warrington attributed the growth to more frequent service and more express trains that the agency enacted at the beginning of its fiscal year in July – as well as economic changes.
“Clearly a piece of the driver is fuel prices,” he said. “A piece is frequency and choice. And the third overlaying factor is the economy and jobs.”
Free weekend parking at a new 1,250-space park and ride in Ramsey also hasn’t hurt.
The $27.5 million parking garage and station off Route 17, which opened in August 2004, has been the butt of jokes because of the hundreds of unused parking spaces. NJ Transit even started leasing space in the garage to neighboring car dealers.
As of this week, 266 people had purchased monthly permits at the parking garage – less than a quarter of its capacity. But that’s more than double the 123 permits that had been purchased a year ago.
Transit officials are especially encouraged by the increases they are seeing on weekends, historically a weak spot for the lines that run through Bergen and Passaic counties.
The number of weekend passengers on the Main and Bergen lines – which cut through western Bergen and eastern Passaic – has run significantly below weekend riders on other commuter rail lines in the state.
The Pascack Valley line, which cuts through the center of Bergen to and from Hoboken, has no weekend service.
The gap started closing last year.
Between the fiscal year that ended in June 2004 and the one that ended this past June, the average number of Saturday trips on the Main and Bergen lines increased nearly 17 percent to 3,450, according to NJ Transit numbers. The average Sunday trips on those lines grew 17.3 percent to 2,700.
That trend continued in the first three months of this fiscal year, said agency spokesman Dan Stessel. Between July and September, an average 3,900 trips were made on Saturdays and 3,000 on Sundays.