(The following article by Ken Belson was posted on the New York Times website on February 13.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Laying out details of a proposed fare increase, New Jersey Transit officials said on Tuesday that interstate train and bus fares would go up an average of 9.9 percent, applied equally to monthly passes and single tickets, to help close a projected $60 million shortfall in next year’s operating budget.
The proposed rate increases are scheduled to go into effect in June, but they face a series of public hearings next month. They are the first in two years and the third since 2002.
George D. Warrington, the executive director of New Jersey Transit, said the proposed fares would be evenly distributed, unlike the system two years ago when the price of single tickets rose more sharply than monthly train passes.
Mr. Warrington, who plans to leave the agency next month, said the increases were unavoidable because of rising operating costs combined with expanded service to keep up with record ridership.
Some prices would rise slightly more than others. For instance, a one-way train ticket from Ridgewood to Pennsylvania Station in New York would rise to $7.50, from $7, while a monthly pass would increase to $218, from $198. Bus riders traveling one way from Freehold to the Port Authority Terminal in Manhattan would pay $11.75 instead of the current $10.75. A monthly pass would cost $277, up from $252.
Local bus, subway and light-rail tickets would rise at lower rates. A one-zone bus ticket would cost 8 percent more, or $1.35 instead of $1.25.
“There will be new service over the next 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 years, and we’re not going to steal from the capital budget to pay for it,” Mr. Warrington said. Because fares on New Jersey Transit trains, buses, subways and light rail cover only about 45 percent of the cost of operation, adding riders increases the agency’s deficit.
Consumer advocates have complained that lawmakers favor car and truck drivers at the expense of transit riders by remaining reluctant to raise gasoline taxes.
“We are sick and tired of transit being treated like a business and the highways being treated as a giveaway,” said David Peter Alan, the chairman of the Lackawanna Coalition, an advocacy group.