Preliminary Plans For New Port Authority Bus Terminal

The Port Authority has released a report describing some preliminary options for replacing its crumbling mid-town bus terminal. Several options involve relocating long distance inter-city bus services to an unspecified off-site location.  Two alternatives are to construct a new terminal somewhere between 9th and 11th avenues which would mean a lack of direct subway access for commuters.  Others involve keeping the terminal near its current location, which would require interim bus terminal facilities for several years while the terminal is re-built.


The report discusses several near-term options for dealing with commuting issues in and out of the terminal which may seem promising:

• Exploring strategies to manage near term growth at the existing terminal:
• Route consolidation
• Hub & spoke operations
• Hudson River ferries
• Service to other transit hubs in NY and NJ (George Washington Bridge Bus Station, Secaucus Junction, ferry terminals)
• Gate utilization

We have long been an advocate of shifting some buses to run via the under-utilized George Washington Bridge Bus Station, and then via the east side as an alternative to the Lincoln Tunnel and the mid-town terminal.  NJT is already coordinating the NY Waterway ferry on its River Road bus service.  Further, the infamous port authority gate re-shuffling has seemed to alleviate some of the pm rush hour commuting delays.

A new terminal is a must for New Jersey commuters.  However, it looks like it will be years of more commuting chaos for NJ commuters to deal with the current terminal, and then years of construction, and alternate commuting as the new terminal is built.

NJBUS Pic of the Week

Rockland Coaches Route 14K at GWBBS in 2014

NJBUS Pic of the Week

NJT 165T at Lincoln Tunnel August 2015

NJT Proposed 9% Fare Hike and Service Cuts for Fall 2015

It looks like New Jersey bus and rail commuters will once again be paying more for less.  NJT is proposing a 9% fare increase and some rail and service cuts beginning in September 2015. 

The proposed bus cuts mostly involve bus routes serving South Jersey:

419 Camden – Pennsauken – Burlington:  Proposed Elimination of Service Between Riverside and Burlington City

463 Woodbury – Avandale Park-Ride: Proposed Elimination of the Last PM Trip in Each direction

307 Freehold – Great Adventure: Proposed Service Discontinuance

318 Philadelphia – Great Adventure: Proposed Service Discontinuance

655 Princeton – Plainsboro: Proposed Service Discontinuance

872 Morristown – Route 10 – Livingston:  Proposed Elimination of Service Between Mack-Cali (Parsippany) and Livingston Mall

 

Two late night trains out of Hoboken are also on the chopping block:  The 12:45AM Pascack Valley Line train and the 12:32AM Montclair Boonton Line train.

A series of public hearings are scheduled for next month including one on May 20 from 5:30-8:30PM in Hackensack at The Learning Center, 4th Floor, One Bergen County Plaza. 

For further information, including the new higher fares and the other hearing times can be found here.

Three Routes Picked for Bergen County Bus Rapid Transit

Bergen County and NJ Transit have picked three potential new routes for a new Bergen County Bus Rapid Transit system.  As we have been reporting, the County and NJ Transit have been studying a Bus Rapid Transit System and have now narrowed the original nine proposed routes down to three. The routes are:

• Montvale Park and Ride to the Secaucus Junction Rail Station via Paramus Park, Bergen Community College and Garden State Plaza.
• Paramus Park Mall to the Secaucus Junction Rail Station via Bergen Community College, Garden State Plaza and Hackensack.
• Englewood Hospital to Paterson via Hackensack and Garden State Plaza.

More details about these routes are available here.  Some of the routes that weren't picked for implementation travelled from Bergen County to New York City.  Officials cited overcrowding at the Port Authority as part of the reason these routes weren't picked.

We welcome any new transportation initiatives for Northern New Jersey but we think alleviating the trans-hudson commuting issues should still be a top priority for NJ Transit. 

It's Official - The Port Authority Bus Terminal is Declared "The Worst Place on Earth"

Check out this VERY humorous clip from John Oliver's Last Week Tonight Show on HBO claiming that the Port Authority Bus Terminal is the "single worst place on planet earth."  Click here to view the clip.


Also from this past weekend, The Bergen Record reports on the dismal conditions at the terminal and describes how some bus drivers do laps around the bus terminal in order to meet their scheduled departure time. 

Public Service Route 80 Hasbrouck Heights - New York (1971)

This is the old Route 80 from the GWB Terminal to Hasbrouck Heights.  Service over the GWB  was discontinued in the 1980's and rerouted between Passaic and Englewood as the B-80.  The service remains today as NJT's Route 780.

Red and Tan Lines/Rockland Coaches Route 84 (1983)

 

Here is a Red and Tan Route 84 Schedule from 1983. Red and Tan has been cutting back this route dramatically over the last few years. They currently are only running a handful of rush hour buses combined with the 20 line. Saddle River Tours took over the 20/84 line on May 5, 2014 after Rockland Coaches dropped the route.  Interestingly, the last run of the night back in 1983 was also a combined 84/20 run to the Rockland Psychiatric Center.

Welcome to the New Jersey Bus Blog

Hi. Welcome to my blog.  I plan to use this blog to post some old new jersey bus schedules from my collection.  If you have any you would like to share (especially from the 1930s through the 1990s), please send them to me at njbus86@yahoo.com.  Here is a classic Red and Tan 11A Schedule from 1987.