(The following article by Bill Bowman was posted on the Asbury Park Press website on August 20.)
ASBURY PARK, N.J. — For Joe Demeraski, choosing between commuting by train or by car is a matter of simple economics.
Demeraski, 27, of Keansburg said he rides between Middletown and Manasquan four days a week.
“If you’re filling your tank three times a week and putting in $20 every time,” Demeraski said, “the train is pretty much half of that.”
Demeraski is not alone in choosing public transportation over high gasoline costs. NJ Transit, which runs the nation’s largest statewide public transportation system, announced earlier this year that ridership on its buses, trains and light rail systems had jumped to more than 225 million trips in 2004. That’s a record, surpassing volumes in the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, period.
Rising gasoline prices are one of several reasons people are climbing on board, an agency spokeswoman said.
According to NJ Transit figures, bus ridership exceeded 150 million trips, an increase of nearly 3 percent from 2003, and rail ridership jumped about 5 percent from 2003 to 64 million passenger trips.
Light-rail passenger trips also increased to 11.3 million trips, up 24 percent from the previous year.
NJ Transit officials see factors other than pump prices at work.
“What’s driving it may not necessarily be fluctuations in fuel prices, it could be job growth here in New Jersey as well as New York City,” said NJ Transit spokeswoman Janet Hines. “It could be that the traffic is getting to be too much on the highway, so they are opting to take public transportation as an alternative.”
Bernard Gindoff, chairman of the Lakewood Transportation and Safety Board, said he’s certain that higher gasoline prices are a major incentive to take mass transit.
“I would not doubt it at all,” said Gindoff, who is also a member of the Central Jersey Rail Coalition. “It affects a lot of people in many ways, particularly people who have to go to work. I think there’s a lot of people who will look to use public transportation.”
Pain at the pump
Pam Maiolo, spokeswoman for the AAA of New Jersey’s mid-Atlantic region, said that the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in the state has increased by 24 cents since Aug. 1.
On Aug. 1, she said, the average price was $2.28. The average price as of Friday, she said, was $2.52 a gallon.
By contrast, she said, in the period from August 2003 to August 2004 — a full year — the average price of a gallon of unleaded increased by 40 cents, from $1.45 to $1.85.
To meet rising demand, NJ Transit last month announced the purchase of 289 new buses and 131 new double-decker rail cars.
The rail cars will have 135 seats each in a two-by-two configuration that eliminates the middle seat. They will first be deployed on New York-bound trains on the North Jersey Coast, Main/Bergen, Montclair-Boonton and Raritan Valley lines. Scheduled for delivery at the end of the summer, they will be tested before being put into service.
Higher gasoline prices may be chasing commuters to more than just the rails and buses.
NY Waterway is seeing an increase in ridership on its ferry service from Middletown’s Belford section to Manhattan that, at least in part, is being attributed to the increased cost of driving, Pat Smith, spokesman for the ferry service, said Friday.
He said 1,000 passengers rode during the week ending Aug. 13, compared to 900 during the same week a year ago.
NY Waterway also opened a new 402-space parking lot at the Belford Ferry Terminal July 25, increasing the available spaces to 1,047. Parking is free.
Smith said a one-way trip to Manhattan costs $17. If a rider buys a monthly $510 ticket, the one-way cost averages out to $12.25, he said.