(The following story by Paul Nussbaum appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on August 14.)
PHILADELPHIA — NJ Transit and SEPTA will sell tickets to all of each other’s stations, as part of a joint ticketing operation announced yesterday.
Tickets to SEPTA and NJ Transit destinations are now available at NJ Transit vending machines, at rail ticket windows at the Trenton station, and at SEPTA ticket windows at Suburban and Market East stations. (SEPTA padlocked the last of its ticket-vending machines in January 2007, citing their inability to accept newly designed U.S. currency.)
Fares will not be affected. Passengers will pay the combined SEPTA and NJ Transit rate. For example, a Philadelphia-to-New York one-way fare will be $20.50, and a Hamilton-to-Philadelphia International Airport one-way fare will be $11.50. Princeton-to-Paoli would be $14.
The arrangement is designed to make it easier for New Jersey and Pennsylvania residents to travel between the states, spokesmen for the systems said in yesterday’s joint announcement.
The general managers of the two agencies – Richard Sarles at NJ Transit and Joseph Casey at SEPTA – are relatively new in their positions, and both have talked about making bistate travel less cumbersome.
They also have expressed interest in creating an electronic “smart card” that would work on SEPTA and NJ Transit.