(The following article by Judy Rife was posted on the Times Herald-Record website on May 3.)
NEW YORK — Metro-North Railroad and NJ Transit are seeing marked increases in ridership this year and are attributing at least part of the gains to the high price of gas.
“We experienced the highest ridership in our history last year, and we’re continuing to do well this year,” said Dan Brucker, a spokesman for Metro-North.
Through April, the railroad estimates that rush-hour ridership alone jumped 2.5 percent over last year – meaning about 2,000 more people are riding Metro-North trains on both sides of the Hudson River.
Brucker said rush-hour ridership has been flat in recent years, so the increase is all the more notable. Most of last year’s gains – a 3.7 percent increase east-of-Hudson and an 8.5 percent increase west-of-Hudson – were driven by people using the trains on weekends and off-peak hours.
Metro-North, however, can only assume high gas prices are a factor in the jump. Brucker said the railroad has historically seen ridership increase in good economic times – and these are good economic times.
At NJ Transit, ridership on trains, buses and light rail for the quarter ending in March was up almost 6 percent over the same quarter last year. Then, in April, when gas prices started to spike, ridership rose another 5 percent.
“In other words, ridership this April is about 11 percent higher than last April, and we attribute about half of that to the current high cost of gasoline,” said George Warrington, NJ Transit’s executive director.
Other factors include the expansion of train, bus and light rail service over the past year and the upbeat job market.
To handle the record-high demand, NJ Transit has redeployed staff to provide additional customer-service operators at its toll-free call center; created a new section at its Web site (www.njtransit.com) for trip planning and schedules; and introduced a parking-capacity tracker to show customers where spaces are available on a daily basis.
It will also offer a free round-trip ticket in June to customers who buy their monthly passes by mail, to encourage their family or friends to try the train or bus.
“The most important thing we are doing is what we are not doing,” said Brucker at Metro-North. “And we are not imposing a fuel surcharge on tickets, even though our own fuel costs have soared.
Instead, we’re going to look for other economies in our budget, perhaps delay a project or two.” NJ Transit, likewise, has no plans for a surcharge or fare increase.
Both agencies raised fares last year but never saw the temporary decline in ridership that usually follows a jump in ticket prices.