Off Peak Gone

I’m a believer in mass transit. I’m a believer in the rails. I’m a believer in reducing our pollution and dependence on foreign oil and I see no other choice that reducing the number of cars on the road. But the only way to do that is to make mass transit more appealing, which means creating more economic incentives for increased usage of the system.

About twice a month or so, I visit my mother. She lives in the N.J. Suburbs, Bergen County, the land of my birth and childhood.

I take the train out of Hoboken to Ridgewood. Long term readers know some of this. Paramus is my hometown. I take the train to Ridgewood, spend a day with mom. The fare was what was considered off-peak. This fare is lower than peak, i.e., outside the rush hour price. Tens of thousands, shoot maybe it’s hundreds of thousands of folks travel from suburban New Jersey to Wall Street via the Hoboken train station. So heading west the trains are packed between 7-9 AM and likewise packed 5-7 PM on the way east.

Off-Peak fares are an incentive to increase usage of trains. Economic activity within the state, particularly along the stops on specific line is encouraged at the same time driving is discouraged. With the construction of the junction station at Secaucus, riders now have access to all the trains in state’s transit system. A stop has been added for the new Meadowlands Stadium to further discourage driving.

Beginning with McGreevy, our state government made a concerted and mostly successful effort to improve Garden State trains.

In 2009, corruption among our elected Democratic officials dampened turn out, as well as that uninspiring dullard Democratic Governor, led to a right-wing freak getting into office and appointing a Bush Transportation official to head our state’s transportation department. Yes, an official from that disgraceful administration, the same administration that worked towards “privatizing” AMTRAK. Thank God, they were stopped.

In New Jersey on May 1st, the day before my Mother's Day visit to Mom, across the board, all fares rose 25 percent. Off-Peak fares were eliminated entirely. My fare went from $11.25 to $16.50. That’s about a 40 percent increase, and I’ve seen a quote that the increase maybe 60 percent. That is more than just a bite, it’s a maiming.

I work in a dying industry and nobody has seen or will be seeing salary increases any time soon, but luckily an extra five bucks will not kill me. It’s annoying and irritating—what would be worse might be the soon to be announced schedule reductions, potentially limiting my visits to mom. Honestly, I’m not whining about my personal experience even though I am ticked off.

In general, on my particular train, folks get on in Hoboken and off at the various towns, which include not just leafy suburbs but Paterson, Passaic, Clifton—depending on the particular line. I noticed in recent years, with the implementation of increased trains and off-peak fares, folks actually getting in the train car and getting off at stops other than Hoboken and Ridgewood. They looked like workers of some kind, once or twice it was a mother and child. They are usually “people of color” and seemed to be immigrants, for the most part. Not always, but that has been my general impression. Let’s just say, they are not members of Christie’s Country Club. They seem poor or lower middle class, if I was to guess. An extra five bucks to get from one N.J. town to another by train will have a bigger impact on them than me. It could be a matter of going to work or not.

I can’t argue that there were a lot of these folks, but I seemed to see more and more of them. When I visited mom on M-Day, none. Maybe it was coincidence, and maybe my reverie was tainted by anger over this Republican attack on mass transit and thus my perception clouded. The fact though, this encouragement for mass transit travel between towns, and counties has been eliminated. We need to reduce our state’s dependence on the automobile not just to make the Turnpike faster, but because carbon-based emissions are killing our planet and wars for oil are killing our youth!

Here’s the underlying philosophy, mass transit should economically sustain itself. Since the invention of trains, no rail system has survived without government funding. In the 19th century, it was through land grants and government subsidiaries. Why? Because infrastructure is not profitable in and of itself, we don’t make it subject to market forces because it is infrastructure that allows a market, i.e., an economy to exist and once it exists to sustain it, enhance it. In the 19th century, linking the coasts, unifying the country, towns sprung up, our economy flourished. The Free Market didn’t kill the Indians.

I’m ceaselessly pulled towards the past when supporting my arguments. And, I love trains and NJ Transit does a pretty good job, it’s a good system. I fear it may not survive this current administration in Trenton. Their mantra is not to increase taxes. Reducing traffic or our dependence on the automobile is not part of their lexicon. A draconian increase in fares can fly because it is not a “tax” increase. And, why shouldn’t “they” pay more to ride “their” train, I don’t take the train from Paterson to Fairlawn.

Of course, where is the comparable hike in tolls? Why aren’t tolls proliferating? Why is my tax money being used to repave Route 17? In fact, our gas tax is kept artificially low because a gas tax increase would get the ire of our ill-read, lazy minded electorate.

I may not use the highways every day, but it is part of our infrastructure. Me visiting my mother off-peak, the dishwasher in Fairlawn who doesn’t own a car, the commuters stuck in a rush hour traffic jam on the turnpike—it’s all our infrastructure, just as it is in all our interest that we reduce our dependence on the polluting automobile. The fare increase and the elimination of the off-peak discount, it is not just short-sighted, it divides us. Ever since the dawn of the Reagan era, dividing this country pushed through the right wing agenda. We’re paying for it nationally. Eight years of Trickle Down redux has dismantled our economy and brought us closer to being a two-teir society. Christie is doing his part in making us a two-tier state. When somebody traveled off-peak, everyone benefited.

Holy crap, I wrote a rant!