Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Nat Bottigheimer, New Jersey Director for Regional Plan Association.
Sustaining New Jersey Transit service at pre-pandemic levels is vitally important to New Jersey’s health, economy & environment and to the tens of thousands of essential workers who rely on it daily, have borne the brunt of COVID, have been hardest hit by the economic downturn, and have the fewest transportation options.
RPA is delighted that NJ Transit’s budget is maintaining service and fares at pre-pandemic levels through FY 2021. However, as we look to FY 2022 and beyond we have deep concerns about the availability of needed transit funding to continue this crucial service.
With no guarantee of new additional Federal relief funds beyond those already received, it is critical that our federal elected leaders keep the pressure up for a second round of COVID relief funding.
New State sources of funding must be tapped to prevent transit service reductions that would harm essential workers and the most vulnerable, and forestall diversion of capital funds from the infrastructure rebuilding program that NJ Transit has set forth in its strategic and capital plans.
RPA’s advocacy for elevated transit funding depends on easy and transparent availability of performance information and planning materials.
The agency is definitely moving in the right direction in this regard.
The recently-released strategic and capital plans are models of information communication, and newly-available customer survey data showing ridership by race and income motivates resources to support New Jersey’s most vulnerable.
More detailed data on bus movements can show how traffic congestion and other factors worsen bus performance and increase transit cost, and would be extremely helpful to our advocacy; so would on-line libraries of past planning studies.
RPA understands that raw data on transit performance can be imperfect and may reveal information gaps that need correcting.
We recognize this risk and commit to providing the greatest support possible to connect such gaps with the need for investment in updated information systems, and also to support the positive strategic value of sharing performance data, even if it is not perfect.
