NJ Transit responds to customers with 346 more bus trips on popular, summer routes
NJ Transit added 346 weekday bus trips last month that increased summer seasonal service, extended routes and increased frequency on corridors with growing ridership — a sign of flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs.
“We added 157 trips on 30 routes to provide added capacity and reduce crowding,” said Mike Kilcoyne, the agency’s senior vice president for surface transportation. “We made adjustments on 29 routes in running times and frequency to improve reliability and on-time performance as well as transfer connections. We also added, rerouted, adjusted or extended five routes based on customer requests and customer feedback.”
The changes were applauded by board member Bob Gordon during last week’s committee meeting, where the changes were announced.
“I want to commend bus operations for responding to the changes and commuting patterns and New Jersey economy,” Gordon said. “A lot of changes [are] occurring in our state, and I think it’s critically important for our commuting system to change with it.”
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Here is an overview of some of the improvements:
No. 1 in Newark — the agency’s most popular route, according to recent ridership numbers — received 20 additional weekday trips.
No. 10 in Bayonne-Jersey City has seen ridership increase 52% since the agency took over the route from Coach last year, and it received 29 additional weekday trips.
No. 25, which goes from Maplewood to Newark on Springfield Avenue, received 46 additional weekday and Saturday trips. The agency also extended the route to the area of Doremus and Roanoke avenues to serve the growing warehouse district, including FedEx, plus a new stop on Avenue P at Wilson Avenue.
No. 119, which serves Jersey City, Bayonne and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, has seen a 49% increase in weekday ridership since NJ Transit took over the route from Coach last summer. Another 15 weekday trips were added.
Nos. 192D and 199K, routes modified to serve former DeCamp customers, received additional trips and changes to serve more riders, especially in Harrison and Kearny.
Bill Beren, transportation committee chair for the New Jersey Sierra Club, said the additions were welcome news but would like to see more improvements take place.
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Some of the routes that received added service, such as the Nos. 10 and 119, were among those that Beren and his committee highlighted in a report published in 2020. The report spotlighted 30 bus corridors that should be “high frequency corridors” — routes where buses run every 15 minutes or less for the vast majority of the day, including midday.
“We’re encouraged by the increase in routes and particularly off-peak service and weekend service they talked about,” Beren said, but he added, “Not only do you have to provide the service, but you have to promote it, and that’s by identifying these routes as frequent service corridors on the bus maps.”
The news of bus improvements and additions comes while the agency undergoes a restructuring, in which “service alignments” and potential cuts are among the options being weighed as NJ Transit officials brace for a potential $1 billion budget shortfall in fiscal year 2026.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Transit responds to riders, adds 346 bus trips on popular routes
