Good morning Chairman Benson and members of the Committee.

My name is Zoe Baldwin and I am the NJ Director for the Regional Plan Association, the nation’s oldest independent metropolitan research, planning and advocacy organization.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak on this incredibly timely and important topic.

I’d like to start with a simple statement of fact: the Venn Diagram of mobility and equity is a circle. In order to thrive, people need reliable and affordable access to the places that meet their day-to-day needs such as work, school, the grocery store, the doctor’s office, and social activities.

Yet despite the fact that we live in one of the most dense and prosperous states in the nation, for New Jerseyans who depend on transit, these basic trips can be difficult, overly time consuming or in many places, impossible.

The two main determinants of equitable mobility are simple and inextricable: transit access and land use. The first one is obvious — we need more transit and more frequent transit, specifically local buses.

But we also need to make sure that our public transit is supported by good land use decisions like affordable housing and denser development near stations, stops, and community centers, and coupled to bike and pedestrian infrastructure to ensure safe connectivity.

The good news is that we know what we need to do, we just need to decide to do it. There are two main themes NJ can focus on right now to facilitate job access for transit-dependent communities: make it reliable, and make it relevant.

Alright, but what does that mean?

Reliable transit means a funded agency and prioritized infrastructure. Riders need to know that the bus is going to show up on time and that fares will remain affordable. This means we need dedicated, recurring operating funds so the agency can keep fares low, attract an adequate workforce of drivers and engineers, and to ensure that riders aren’t delayed by mechanical and system failures due to deferred maintenance.

Dedicated taxes contribute between 47% and 62% of operating assistance for most major transit systems, yet NJ Transit is subject to the annual whims of the budget process. This shortchanging has starved the agency of staffing, support systems, customer-focused information, and passenger amenities including ADA-compliant upgrades.

And this cycle of underfunding falls disproportionately on the backs of riders. Fares increased steadily over the past two decades to make up for the insufficient support from the state budget, and NJ riders now pay a larger share of transit operating costs than in almost any other region of the country. Specifically, fares account for 46% of the agency’s operating revenue, which is significantly higher than the national average of 32%.

This ever-looming threat exposes vulnerable riders to uncertainty and threatens to undermine other state goals such as cleaner air and congestion relief.

Reliable transit also means prioritized infrastructure. With more than 250 bus routes and a fleet of around 2,200 buses, NJ Transit is one of the largest providers of public transportation in the country. Before the pandemic, on an average weekday there were about a half a million passenger trips on NJ Transit buses. This is almost twice the number of trips taken by rail.

Yet, there are only eight miles of bus lanes in the entire state. That’s 15 times less than in New York City alone. In addition to road space, buses should be given signal priority at traffic lights to increase on time performance and make sure riders can get where they’re going on time.

Now the second theme:

Relevant transit means increasing access to the places people need to go. Many communities have transportation infrastructure, but residents still lack mobility. It seems counter-intuitive, but stops and stations are useless if riders can’t access job centers, grocery stores, and health facilities in a reasonable amount of time. To that end, we need to reconsider what ​“off-peak” service means to those in the health and services industry, we need to accelerate projects that reduce transfers and expand access to new neighborhoods, in addition to making better land use decisions near existing service.

The good news is that NJ Transit’s Strategic and Capital plans have clear goals for improving bus service in the state, including the aim of having 40% of the population have access to high-frequency service within the next decade — and that would be transformative.

And to their credit, the agency has begun the work. Since 2018, they’ve added more than 90 new scheduled bus trips a day, and have begun important redesigns of service in both Camden and Newark that will update routes serving more than 200,000 residents combined. But again, to be successful, this work needs to be supported by recurring, dedicated, and adequate funding.

In addition to revisiting existing service, we also need new projects like Port Authority’s proposed PATH extension, which would add a stop at Frelinghuysen Avenue in Newark. The project would not only increase transit connectivity to Newark Liberty Airport for the entire region, it would also greatly expand job access for the Dayton Neighborhood in Newark’s South Ward.

Dayton sits amidst several major roadways, is just 2 miles from the Airport and very close to other economic hubs like Hoboken and Jersey City. On a map, this proximity should present abundant educational and career opportunities for residents, but the neighborhood has only a few bus lines and incredibly low rates of car ownership.

And it’s worth noting here that 79 percent of Greater Dayton’s population identifies as black and approximately 19 percent identify as Hispanic. The median income is one of the very lowest in the state hovering just above $11,000. And the need to deliver this type of project to this neighborhood encapsulates the crux of my testimony: people need mobility in order to thrive. We cannot make the state more equitable or less segregated, without actively working to increase transportation options in struggling communities.

And I want to emphasize the word active here. For decades, we have held hearings and conducted studies but, for myriad reasons, have failed to act. Equity will not happen because we want it to, or because we talk about it and study it. We must take proactive, concrete steps to make it happen, even when those steps are hard.

And that brings me to my final point: we must address land use and zoning in order to truly start dismantling the mundane structures that entrench NJ’s inequity and segregation. Housing and development decisions directly impact both physical and economic mobility, yet it is an aspect that we as a state have been loath to address.

In order to increase people’s access to jobs and education, we need to increase density around transit stops and stations, and we need to make sure that development includes housing that is affordable to middle‑, low‑, and very low-income families.

Time is our most precious resource and transit riders, on average, spend more than double the time of drivers getting to work. Drivers in our region reported an average travel time of approximately 30 minutes. In contrast, those who relied on public transportation traveled on average 75 minutes to work.

And the true cost of that time is magnified by escalating childcare costs, time spent away from family, and downtime necessary for long term mental health.

In addition to housing, many job centers are not located near transit, many jobs aren’t located in centers at all, they’re single locations in car-centric landscapes that require long walks and multiple transfers. NJ, and its component localities, need consider these connectivity needs when planning and approving development. Every time, in every place.

In order to meet any of states goals on equity or job access we must move away from development decisions that separate our most vulnerable communities from the very opportunities we say we want to create. The term ​“historically excluded communities” has been used to describe the attitude of our policies to traditionally black and brown neighborhoods and it is particularly apt here. Our land use decisions have generally excluded any consideration for transit riders, creating unnecessary barriers to stability and advancement.

This is why we were glad to see projects like the proposed Route 9 bus rapid transit project, and the Middlesex-Monmouth transit-oriented development study that was just awarded federal funding. But they key to this component rests not in NJ Transit’s hands, but in ensuring that local governments are also doing their part to make the system work for riders.

Thank you for listening today. I know I’ve been long, but there is one final point that must not be forgotten: approximately three-quarters of local bus riders in New Jersey are essential or frontline workers who kept this state running throughout the pandemic while the rest of us were able to isolate ourselves and our families from COVID-19. Three quarters.

They kept the most vital parts of our society running at great risk to themselves and the very least we can do in return is start making our built environment built for them.

Again, equity necessitates mobility. It’s often overlooked in conversations about economic empowerment, but if we truly want to make NJ a stronger, fairer, more affordable place to live, we must address the structures and decisions that literally and physically hold people in place.