NJ Transit customers will get a week of free rides to compensate for a summer of service disruptions. The fare holiday will cost $19 million. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
NJ Transit riders will get free rides for a week as an apology and token of appreciation for a summer of service suspensions and delays primarily on the system’s northeast corridor, Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday.
Monthly customers will get a 25% discount on their September passes in lieu of daily customers’ weeklong “fare holiday,” which will last from Aug. 26 through Sept. 2 and apply to rail, light rail, and bus service.
State officials want to “end the summer on a grace note,” Murphy said on Fox 5 New York’s morning show Thursday, where he announced the fare break. This summer’s extreme heat, the system’s ancient infrastructure, and finger-pointing between NJ Transit and Amtrak have stranded thousands of rail riders — sometimes every day, sometimes for hours, and at least once in a hot, dark tunnel under the Hudson River.
“I’m not naive enough to think that if you’ve had the summer that our commuters have had, that one week will do it,” Murphy said. “Given the lack of service that we’ve seen over the summer, I think it’s the least we could do.”
The fare holiday is expected to cost the state $19 million, NJ Transit spokesman John Chartier said. It comes six weeks after the troubled transit agency hiked fares as much as 15% to cover a budget shortfall created partly by a pandemic-related drop in ridership that hasn’t yet fully rebounded. State lawmakers in June approved a new business surtax , which is expected to generate about $1 billion in its first year, to help the troubled transit agency.
“We are fixing it,” Murphy said.
The governor attributed “two-thirds of our delays, plus or minus” to Amtrak infrastructure. The federal rail agency has applied for $300 million in federal grants to fix the overhead catenary wires on the rail system, Murphy said. Those wires can fail on extremely hot days, and officials often blame them for summer service disruptions.
“I’m extremely frustrated,” Murphy said. “Again, a lot of this is out of our hands.”
Michele Siekerka, president and CEO of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said in a statement Thursday that the fare holiday “smacks of unfairness to New Jersey’s business community.”
“Providing this fare holiday on the heels of a massive corporate tax increase to support the budget woes for NJ Transit is a frustrating message and wholly disregards the latest hit our business community just took on competitiveness,” Siekerka said.
Both state and federal officials continue investigating the “root causes” of the service problems, with NJ Transit staffers increasing equipment inspections on platforms and Amtrak focusing on the catenary wires, track signal systems, and northeast corridor substations, Murphy said.
The northeast corridor is the busiest rail route in the country, with about 750,000 passengers daily, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
The River Line, light rail service that runs along the Delaware River between Camden and Trenton, also has come under fire in recent weeks for service cancelations and delays. NJ Transit temporarily expanded bus service along the route until the River Line’s service problems improve.
“It’s been a really ugly summer,” Murphy said. “Here’s the good news: The trajectory from where we were to where we are and where we’re going is very positive.”
Still, he acknowledged, “good luck telling that to somebody who’s stuck in a train under the Hudson River for two or three hours.”
Nikita Biryukov contributed.
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