NEWARK, N.J. — The angry protests that arose three months ago when New Jersey Transit approved its first fare increases in a decade gave way, mostly, to calm acceptance today as the new fares went into effect, averaging about 10 percent higher, the New York Times reports.
“What can you do?” said a resigned Rose Jara of Roselle, N.J. “You have to commute, and complaining about it won’t help.”
Noel Bourne of Irvington said, “It’s just one of those things,” as he got out the extra cash for his trip between Pennsylvania Station here and his job with United Parcel Service in Edison. “Things are going to roll, and you just have to be flexible.”
A few other morning commuters were going, but not going quietly. For Timothy Burks, an investment banker from Edison, the increases were galling because the revenue will go toward filling gaps in the agency’s operating budget and not toward improvements, like new cars, that could ease the overcrowding on trains and buses.
“It’s just more money for them and the same service for us,” said Mr. Burks as he was about to board a Manhattan-bound train at the Metro Park station.
Some riders, especially bus passengers whose single-zone fares rose to $1.10 from $1, were caught by surprise and sent rifling through purses and pockets or to a helpful fellow commuter for the extra change. Some blamed New Jersey Transit for not blaring reminders of the April 1 increase more frequently and prominently, while others just cursed life’s distractions and their rotten memories.
“I did know it was going up today,” admitted an exasperated Jessica Graham, a lawyer, who missed her bus from Hoboken to the Port Authority because she had to run and get more change.
The fare increases are the first in 11 years for New Jersey Transit, the nation’s third-largest public transit agency with about 380,000 train and bus riders a day. The increases will generate about $38 million in additional revenue for the agency’s billion-dollar annual budget — an infusion that falls short of the agency’s estimated $169 million annual budget gap.
Although the average increase is about 10 percent, some fares go up much more. A one-way ticket between Newark and New York City, for example, goes up 32 percent, to $3.30 from $2.50. With the loss of a special round-trip excursion fare which allowed one leg of the journey on peak hours for as little as $3.50, the increase is a whopping 80 percent or so.
The increases were approved Jan. 7 by the board of the transit agency and Acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco, just a day before he left office and a week before Gov. James E. McGreevey succeeded him. Commuters, environmental groups and mass-transit advocates complained, and some speculated that the timing of the increases was intended to insulate Mr. McGreevey from the political fallout. It turns out that the action more than three months before the effective date of the increases also allowed reactions to soften.
Gwen Watson, the acting director of New Jersey Transit, said the agency had purposely voted well before the effective date to allow for a “smooth transition” to the new fares.
Indeed, some people were calmed by a sense that there was some rough justice in the increases. Lenae Moore of Newark echoed the view of many commuters when she noted they had been lucky to avoid an increase for more than a decade.
“Ten percent increase after 10 years,” mused Gary Schwartz, 41, a lawyer from Demarest, as he waited for a bus at the Vince Lombardi Park and Ride along the New Jersey Turnpike in East Rutherford. “As much as I hate to say it, it’s not bad.”
On the station platform at Hoboken, one veteran conductor of 25 years on the Morris and Essex line said it was a day in which he would “smile a lot and walk circumspectly.” When that didn’t work, said the conductor, he positioned a mangled seat check ticket on his cap just over each ear, in the hope that what he called the “bunny effect” might get a smile out of a commuter.