Over here on the east coast, we have New York City, the financial capital of the world, home of the NYSE in bustling downtown, where many important headquarters are. Bordering and right beneath NY is New Jersey, a state often underlooked and poke fun at, but nonetheless, it’s there, and a lot of people need to get from place to place and into the city. Traffic in and around the city, especially trying to get in and out, takes a long time while wasting plenty of gas and toll money. Bridge and tunnel tolls alone are ridiculous; though traffic out there in California is notorious, we make a pretty good case for ourselves here in the northeast corner. Well, what form of transportation bridged the gap between the east and west coast following the days of taking a wagon out west? Trains, locomotives, whatever you want to call them, and though most people in NJ don’t need to take a train all the way out west, trains still serve as a viable option for transportation. So why not take them instead of getting stuck in a toll booth for 45 minutes due to traffic?
Along with many other ill-received policies enacted by Governor Chris Christie, he decided to take New Jersey Transit (NJT), the state’s transportation company that oversees multiple rail, bus, and light rail lines throughout the entire state, and instead of promoting it over driving, turn potential riders away. He recently hiked all fares by a record 25% increase. Well, maybe is to pay more money and get better quality of some sort. They did just buy brand new double-decker trains with nicer furnishing and new buses all recently; however, more of these trains will sit in a trainyard than travel the state as Christie also cut out over 100 trains just from the North East Corridor (NEC) line alone, which runs from the state capital of Trenton to midtown Manhattan and is one of their biggest lines.
If I’m trying to get to my school, I can take the train there along the NEC line as there’s a stop for my school. I’d take the train from Trenton for a small fare and I don’t have to do it often, so 25% of an increase won’t kill me. Alright, so infrequent riders may have to take a few extra toppings off their pizza to make up for the small cost difference the few times they ride, but what happens to the people who rely on NJT to get them into NYC for work everyday, the same way these people rely on work to support their families? To use the NEC line example again, a one way ticket from Trenton to NYC, valid at all times on all NEC trains, cost a little over $12. Now, it costs $15.50, making a round trip cost around $7 more. Multiply that out for the entire year, and it’s obvious that this is no nominal fee.
As I said, I’m lucky enough to have a train station in the center of my college, and it happens to go right into NYC in about an hour. I love NYC as do many of the other 30,000 undergrads there plus the grads, professors who may commute using the train, and anyone who lives in the area. Especially with the college students, with such a hot venue so close, who wouldn’t want to go, but these fare hikewill stop some people. I love taking my bike up to the city and pedaling around for the day, but it’s starting to cost too much money.
I’ve focused on the NEC line and getting in and out of NYC, but let’s not forget that there are plenty of bus routes and other rail/light rail lines that service every spot of the state, and those lines aren’t safe from the hands of Christie. Some of the lines already had inconvenient time tables, so before even considering the fare hike, most people will see how little service a certain bus or train line is offering and will opt for a car.
When gas prices rose, a lot of people turned to mass transit to save money. On top of saving money, these people discovered the pleasure of reliable train and bus service, especially those that run in and out of NYC and take away the ridiculous tolls, traffic, and the outrageous parking fees in the city. Now that gas prices have calmed down a little and the mass transit fees in NJ just spiked, what do you think will happen? Naturally, just like the way people reacted to gas hikes, they will opt for cars because they’re cheaper. In this event, less people will pump money into the mass transit system because they’ll be driving, and traffic/safety will be even worse than it already is. My dad recently took my sister in for an audition on a weekend, when even on a nice day, the trains shouldn’t be packed. He parked at the last station before NYC because it’s cheaper and has trains running from NYC to there every 5-10 minutes. He had to wait 20 minutes for a train to show up, and there wasn’t any room to sit because of the hikes and schedule cuts. Why would people elect to go through with these burdens when they can just drive?
I’m no economist as I found out after taking microeconomics in college, but I know about supply, demand, consumer/producer surplus, and opportunity cost. NJT may have a deficit it needs to overcome, so charging more could work, but if it deters as many people away as it currently is, well that just doesn’t work. The consumers are not willing to pay that much and would also rather seek the comfort of personal transportation with these inconvenient schedules that also cause cramped trains.
People need to travel around the state. I’ve take buses and trains locally when I didn’t have a car or bike on hand, or when I want to go to AC for example, and thousands upon thousands of people need to get in and out of NYC everyday for work and business. There are thousands of young kids like me at college who want to go into the city all the time. These are all just a few major demographic examples I’m giving, but the point is that Christie has a lot of people to exploit when it comes to public transportation. Make it more enticing; don’t drive people to take to the already crowded roads. It’s just not right. As an avid train rider who took the train into NYC all the time, it’s very upsetting to see this all happen. Even I, someone who preaches public transit and riding bikes, would rather seek a different method of getting around. If I’m not supporting NJT under these circumstances, who is?
