Here Comes The Price Hikes

NJ Transit riders could face a fare hike next spring under the funding levels proposed in Gov. Jon Corzine's state budget, documents prepared for lawmakers by the state Department of Transportation show.

The budget documents say a proposed "single-digit" fare hike would be designed to match the rate of inflation over the preceding two years -- currently projected to total about 7 percent.

However, Corzine said yesterday he would work to "avoid" a fare hike, and NJ Transit executive director George Warrington said no final decision would be made until July.

The documents, submitted to the Office of Legislative Services this week as part of the Legislature's consideration of Corzine's $30.9 billion budget, say NJ Transit will need a fare hike next spring to meet revenue targets in the spending plan.

"The agency anticipates that a single-digit fare increase to take effect on or about the 4th quarter of FY 2007 will be necessary," the budget document notes. "This fare increase will occur nearly two years after the agency's last fare increase in July 2005."

The fourth quarter of the upcoming fiscal year begins next April.

Warrington said yesterday the fare hike schedule laid out in the budget document is premature, and that no final decision on whether an increase is needed will be made until July.

For many people, the price hike will not match their salary increases over the same period. Some of the proposed increase will be due to higher energy costs, which cannot be completely avoided, even if the agency hedges on oil purchases in advance.

So, what this means is that someone with a monthly bus pass that current pays $120 a month will pay $128.40.

Warrington said that when the document was drafted about a month ago, the transit agency projected a shortfall of about $10 million to $20 million next spring. Since then, he said, rising gas prices have prompted thousands of new riders to use mass transit, raising the prospect that the fare increase may no longer be needed.

Such a shortfall would have been lessened or nonexistent if the agency had not built the ill conceived and underutilized Route 17 rail station/parking garage and not suffered cost overruns on the Secaucus Junction station to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The Secaucus Junction station remains underutilized because it doesn't have a parking garage to get people out of cars and onto the trains into Manhattan.

Both of those projects are an ongoing drain on NJT coffers because we're paying for the bonding on those projects. But don't expect anyone to own up to those mistakes. Commuters will suffer as a result.