| Company | 2012 trips | Commuter ticket | Most expensive | Max cost | Least expensive | Min cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Trailways | 528,550 | 10-trip x4 | Kingston | $ 765.00 | New Paltz | $ 660.00 |
| Martz | 1,004,651 | 44-trip | Wilkes-Barre | 637.25 | Panther Valley | 514.00 |
| Carl R. Bieber Tourways (PDF) | Unreported | 40-trip | Kutztown | 617.00 | Hellertown | 509.00 |
| Trans-Bridge Lines | 1,237,309 | 40-trip | Allentown | 552.00 | MetLife | 404.50 |
| Lakeland Bus | 1,613,368 | 10-trip x4 | Andover | 467.60 | Montville | 340.00 |
| Short Line (Stagecoach) | 4,314,784 | 40-trip | Monticello | 460.90 | Paramus | 225.95 |
| Academy Lines | 4,121,596 | Monthly | Forked River | 445.00 | Sayreville | 305.00 |
| Suburban Transit (Stagecoach) | 2,810,885 | Monthly | Plainsboro | 435.00 | East Brunswick | 320.00 |
| Community Coach (Stagecoach) | 587,935 | 10-trip x4 | Morristown | 338.40 | Meadowlands | 200.00 |
| Red and Tan Lines (Stagecoach) | 2,908,274 | 20-trip x2 | Tomkins Cove | 286.20 | North Bergen | 115.60 |
| DeCamp | 1,977,041 | 40-trip | West Caldwell | 267.00 | Rutherford | 174.00 |
While many of these are owned by Stagecoach, with profits presumably flowing to Scotland, some of the other companies like DeCamp and New York Trailways are locally owned. Even if the owners take some personal profit from the transit benefit, they have been spending a lot of it here in the Tri-State area.
It's important to point out here that a large number of these "commuters" work from home at least a day or two a week. Many are small business owners, including artists and craftspeople, who travel into the city a few days a week to sell their goods.
Will these people still spend over $400 a month to sit on a bus on the Garden State Parkway or Route 80 for an hour and a half each way? Probably. They get to live in the Catskills or on the Jersey Shore and work in Manhattan.
And yes, the XBL and congestion pricing make it more worthwhile for them to sit on a bus than to drive in to the city.
Dont these buses still sit in a ton of traffic on the Jersey side? I dont suppose anybody in Jersey wants to try to solve that (meanwhile, with the volume of buses they have, the "empty lanes attack" would barely even apply).
ReplyDeleteWhen ive rode Megabus, they take all sorts of regular streets through Union City, and then get back on the freeway before the tunnel. They still manage to hit a lot of traffic. Its ridiculous.