MTR 271, NYC Transit Scuttles S.I.-NJ Bus Talks -'We don't do inter-state service' -

Mobilizing the Region
Issue 271 May 29, 2000

NYC Transit Scuttles S.I.-NJ Bus Talks -'We don't do inter-state service' -

NYC Transit officials abruptly withdrew from a high level meeting of regional transportation agencies earlier this month on Staten Island-NJ bus service over the Bayonne Bridge, the S.I. Advance reported last week. Representative Vito Fossella had arranged the meeting between the Port Authority, NJ Transit, and NYC Transit in Washington DC to finalize plans that would provide Staten Islanders with bus service to and from the Bayonne terminus of the newly opened Hudson-Bergen light rail line.

The Hudson-Bergen line could serve as a new transit route for Staten Islanders into the heart of Hudson County's burgeoning business district and as an alternative to the Staten Island ferry and express buses for Manhattan commuters. However, Island residents must pay a $4 toll to travel by car over the Bayonne Bridge to the new line. A bus service to Bayonne could do much to attract new regular S.I. riders.

Agency officials who made it to the meeting did not come empty-handed. The Port Authority had pledged to cover at least one-third of the cost of the service, estimated at $225,000-300,000 per year. And the NJ Transit emissary promised to foot the bill for a bus stop structure in Bayonne.

The Advance said NYC Transit "strongly signaled its opposition" to the Staten Island-NJ bus service by its absence. NYC Transit spokesperson Al O'Leary explained the agency's pull-out simply by saying, "We don't do interstate service," maintaining that support for the light rail connection would have to come down from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

In a subsequent letter to MTA Chair E. Virgil Conway, Congressman Fossella asked that the MTA become part of discussions of the service plan immediately, stating "it would be unfortunate if this concept were not implemented because of MTA failure to cooperate."

Fossella has approached NYC Transit numerous times to secure bus service into New Jersey for Staten Islanders. Fossella also led the effort to create the HOV lane on the Gowanus Expressway, pushing NY State DOT for a three person/car rule, rather than the two-per-car regulation now causing buses to bog down in heavy car traffic.

Sadly, transit officials in our region often seem among the greatest obstacles to a better mass transit system. The shameful new S.I.-NJ episode brings to mind the MTA's bad attitude toward reviving West Shore line commuter rail service, which again would be a joint project with NJ Transit, or the statement a planner made at an "Access to the Region's Core" planning meeting this winter that future commuter rail connections between Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal would not lead to through-service (New Jersey to Connecticut, for example), "because the railroads (NJ Transit, Long Island Railroad and Metro-North) aren't interested."