NJT To Operate All Non-ShortLine Coach USA Commuter Routes?

[JAzumah]

Is New Jersey Transit planning to operate the commuter routes for Suburban, Community, Rockland, and Olympia Trails beginning in September?

It would not make sense for the new owner to spend $130 million to buy most of Northeast and Chicagoland Coach USA assets to run charters, ShortLine, and Van Galder routes only. It is also something that the bankruptcy judge might want to know before approving the purchase. If the commuter assets are going to be dumped, they should be at least offered for sale or transfer first.  

[DCTransitFilms]

If I remember from it, Suburban is doing ok but idk abt the rest I got to remember.

Still taking everything with a grain of salt idk what's to come in September.

[B35 via Church]

IDK, but if I were to guess, the only routes I can see NJT bothering to take over is the #77 (Community) & the Princeton route; the #100 (Suburban)....

I'd probably CTFU if NJT were to revert/take back over operations of the old #300....

The Rockland County commuters I think will end up being toast.... NJT can only stretch the Oradell routes but so far (figuratively & literally speaking)...

[njbus86]

17 hours ago, JAzumah said:

Is New Jersey Transit planning to operate the commuter routes for Suburban, Community, Rockland, and Olympia Trails beginning in September?

It would not make sense for the new owner to spend $130 million to buy most of Northeast and Chicagoland Coach USA assets to run charters, ShortLine, and Van Galder routes only. It is also something that the bankruptcy judge might want to know before approving the purchase. If the commuter assets are going to be dumped, they should be at least offered for sale or transfer first.  

just curious where you heard this from?

[Gotham Bus Co]

9 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

The Rockland County commuters I think will end up being toast.... NJT can only stretch the Oradell routes but so far (figuratively & literally speaking)...

 

Why should NJT operate Rockland County service? Are NJ taxpayers legally required to subsidize Rockland residents?

[JAzumah]

2 hours ago, njbus86 said:

just curious where you heard this from?

People I trust heard it from a friend. 

[B35 via Church]

57 minutes ago, Gotham Bus Co said:

Why should NJT operate Rockland County service? Are NJ taxpayers legally required to subsidize Rockland residents?

Never said it should, nor was it an implication of the sort, so you tell me

Even if the Oradell routes weren't overtaxed, I still don't think NJT should operate service to Rockland county....

Edited July 6 by B35 via Church

[JAzumah]

4 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co said:

Why should NJT operate Rockland County service? Are NJ taxpayers legally required to subsidize Rockland residents?

New Jersey Transit is a transportation company and should go where the citizens of NJ need it to go (within reason). It is why NJT goes to NYC and Philadelphia (and used to go to Delaware as well as Allentown PA). It is also why NJT goes to Suffern and owns Suffern Yard and station despite it being in NY.

The better question is whether a Rockland County segment enhances the business case of the entire route. I would argue (as an example) that a 165 extension to Spring Valley hourly is in the public interest because Spring Valley offers regional connectivity and that is exactly why NJT exists as an entity. I could make a similar argument for a hypothetical 170 to replace the 9/9A/9T operating a bi-hourly off peak service on the same exact route pattern as today's service. With NJT's fare structure, I would make an argument that they should be the region's RTA when services require crossing state lines and that they should incorporate as much of Coach's territory as they can. It is my opinion that the service miles into Rockland County will be largely cost neutral and NYSDOT will subsidize the portions that aren't.
 

15 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

I'd probably CTFU if NJT were to revert/take back over operations of the old #300....

I believe that Bus Company Holdings (NewCo for Coach USA) will keep this route, but if they didn't, Academy would likely try to pick it up.

 

15 hours ago, DCTransitFilms said:

Still taking everything with a grain of salt idk what's to come in September.

Whatever isn't going to stay with Bus Company Holdings or Avalon will likely end just before Labor Day. I believe that the folks in commuter land will get just two weeks notice, but Coach USA and NJT are talking right now. 

[B35 via Church]

33 minutes ago, JAzumah said:

New Jersey Transit is a transportation company and should go where the citizens of NJ need it to go (within reason). It is why NJT goes to NYC and Philadelphia (and used to go to Delaware as well as Allentown PA). It is also why NJT goes to Suffern and owns Suffern Yard and station despite it being in NY.

The better question is whether a Rockland County segment enhances the business case of the entire route. I would argue (as an example) that a 165 extension to Spring Valley hourly is in the public interest because Spring Valley offers regional connectivity and that is exactly why NJT exists as an entity. I could make a similar argument for a hypothetical 170 to replace the 9/9A/9T operating a bi-hourly off peak service on the same exact route pattern as today's service. With NJT's fare structure, I would make an argument that they should be the region's RTA when services require crossing state lines and that they should incorporate as much of Coach's territory as they can. It is my opinion that the service miles into Rockland County will be largely cost neutral and NYSDOT will subsidize the portions that aren't.

 A composite of the first statements in both paragraphs is largely why I don't think NJT (bus-wise) should bother serving Rockland County.

Running the #165 to Spring Valley does much of nothing for NJ residents... On top of it, the entire NJ segment would be nothing more than an armpit, or a conduit to get to NYC for Rockland County patrons....

[Mtatransit]

They announced the following

“Entered an asset purchase agreement with an affiliate of The Renco Group, Inc., Bus Company Holdings US, LLC (“BCH US”), for certain of the company’s bus lines – Dillon’s, Elko, Megabus Retail, Montreal, Olympia, Trentway/Ontario (including Megabus Canada), Perfect Body, Rockland, Shortline (including Chenango Valley Bus Lines), Suburban, Van Galder and Wisconsin Coach – as well as certain assets of Community Coach. The existing Megabus intellectual property and retail operations will also be part of the transaction. U.S. Megabus operations will continue while the company pursues an ongoing transition to the existing partnership business model”

Both Suburban, and Rockland are on that list, as well as some asset of Community Coach whatever that means. 

[checkmatechamp13]

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

 A composite of the first statements in both paragraphs is largely why I don't think NJT (bus-wise) should bother serving Rockland County.

Running the #165 to Spring Valley does much of nothing for NJ residents... On top of it, the entire NJ segment would be nothing more than an armpit, or a conduit to get to NYC for Rockland County patrons....

Funny enough, that's the way I go to Rockland County (make my way to Hackensack and then take the 165 further up the line before taking the Pascack Valley Line)

There definitely needs to be quicker service for those further up the line. The Pascack Valley Line runs terribly, but the 165 is slow as molasses...ideally I'd like to see something akin to the 167Q Union City trips, where they serve Union City, skip North Bergen, and continue further up (Spring Valley would be ideal) There can still be short-turns to New Bridge Landing, Oradell, and Westwood as needed. Especially given how poor rail connections are from Hudson County heading up north, I think a lot of NJ residents would find it useful. Similar story with serving Nyack. 

 

[Lawrence St]

4 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

They announced the following

“Entered an asset purchase agreement with an affiliate of The Renco Group, Inc., Bus Company Holdings US, LLC (“BCH US”), for certain of the company’s bus lines – Dillon’s, Elko, Megabus Retail, Montreal, Olympia, Trentway/Ontario (including Megabus Canada), Perfect Body, Rockland, Shortline (including Chenango Valley Bus Lines), Suburban, Van Galder and Wisconsin Coach – as well as certain assets of Community Coach. The existing Megabus intellectual property and retail operations will also be part of the transaction. U.S. Megabus operations will continue while the company pursues an ongoing transition to the existing partnership business model”

Both Suburban, and Rockland are on that list, as well as some asset of Community Coach whatever that means. 

Could that be why that let go of the Passaic Contract?

[B35 via Church]

6 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Funny enough, that's the way I go to Rockland County (make my way to Hackensack and then take the 165 further up the line before taking the Pascack Valley Line)

There definitely needs to be quicker service for those further up the line. The Pascack Valley Line runs terribly, but the 165 is slow as molasses...ideally I'd like to see something akin to the 167Q Union City trips, where they serve Union City, skip North Bergen, and continue further up (Spring Valley would be ideal) There can still be short-turns to New Bridge Landing, Oradell, and Westwood as needed. Especially given how poor rail connections are from Hudson County heading up north, I think a lot of NJ residents would find it useful. Similar story with serving Nyack.

Yeah, I don't disagree with quicker service - I just don't think it should necessarily be NJT's responsibility to run service to Rockland County.... To be clear, my sentiment isn't that people should be left with nothing; have some other private operator swoop through & take over the remaining Coach USA Rockland Coaches routes, I have zero issue....

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that a lot of NJ patrons would find (improved bus) service to/from Rockland useful.... Back when R&T (red & tan) was a thing, up until where we are now with Coach USA Rockland Coaches, I have never experienced anything resembling a strong enough patronizing of folks in NJ seeking Rockland.... I get the concept of latent demand, but rhetorically speaking, where are these people? One thing I've noticed when I used to ride those routes, is that the folks in NE Bergen County past a certain point a] tend to frown upon people that use the Rockland Coaches buses & NJT bus interchangeably & b] any form of intra-NJ travel.... Always found that to be bizarre.....

I really don't want to harp on the #165 in-particular, but since you mention it, I can't agree with any serving of the #165 in any portion of Rockland County, regardless of whatever it does [between the time it comes out of the tunnel] & [Westwood]... I'd say the current rendition of the route is good right where it is in Westwood & doesn't need yet another variant of the thing....

The PVL running like hot garbage is the bigger issue AFAIC.

Edited July 7 by B35 via Church

[njbus86]

Some runs of the 167/177 could also operate over the current 20 north of Harrington park into rockland County if necessary.

[JAzumah]

17 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

To be clear, my sentiment isn't that people should be left with nothing; have some other private operator swoop through & take over the remaining Coach USA Rockland Coaches routes

NJT is unlikely to give them the buses without pressure. In addition, the voluntary insurance companies do not want private bus companies operating commuter routes. Assigned risk for this work is about $100,000/bus.
 

17 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Back when R&T (red & tan) was a thing, up until where we are now with Coach USA Rockland Coaches, I have never experienced anything resembling a strong enough patronizing of folks in NJ seeking Rockland.

Rockland Coaches was marketed as access to/from NYC. NJT provides access everywhere. There is a difference in purpose...and marketing. I assume fares from NJ to Rockland County existed, but I never saw them marketed. I can obtain a quoted fare into Orange County on the 197 without difficulty.
 

20 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Could that be why that let go of the Passaic Contract?

Companies would fight for profitable contracts. It would be part of the cash flow to turn the company around. My guess is that this contract had less than a 10% yield on it, so it wasn't worth keeping for them.

 

12 hours ago, njbus86 said:

Some runs of the 167/177 could also operate over the current 20 north of Harrington park into rockland County if necessary.

I could see that happening. I believe that some Rockland routes will be moved to ShortLine as well (park & ride express services). Whatever doesn't fit in with the ShortLine model goes to NJT or dies.

[jass]

The FY25 state budget for NJT suggests they have no plans on taking over routes based on the number of predicted buses they will have running.

 

[46Dover]

2 hours ago, jass said:

The FY25 state budget for NJT suggests they have no plans on taking over routes based on the number of predicted buses they will have running.

 

To correspond with available manpower to operate said buses.  I’ve heard folks say that a lot of the makeup of the private carriers were NJT castoffs and given the current plight of commuters in affected areas, still wouldn’t want them within a time zone of the mothership( )

[JAzumah]

17 minutes ago, 46Dover said:

To correspond with available manpower to operate said buses.  I’ve heard folks say that a lot of the makeup of the private carriers were NJT castoffs and given the current plight of commuters in affected areas, still wouldn’t want them within a time zone of the mothership( )

They didn't want to cover the ex-DeCamp routes either. I expect them to intervene, but with less of a scale than in the DeCamp scenario. It will strictly be driven by politics.

[NJTE]

3 hours ago, jass said:

The FY25 state budget for NJT suggests they have no plans on taking over routes based on the number of predicted buses they will have running.

 

-Well the budget was published just a week after Coach declared Chap 11 so it would be much too early for any realistic service plan (Remember that the plans to take over the ONE routes was published till Sept 29th, 2023, just a week before operations ceased) (also they just started negotiating with coach so it wouldn’t make sense to release a plan for something you haven’t finished negotiating on).

-The budget line item does show a halving in FY24 (pictured here) which reflects everything that reverted (ONE, transdev, A&C, academy emergency 24s)

-the FY24 budget didn’t account for any of the reverts due to them being announced after the budget was passed, hence the need to adjust the budget in the first place 

[NJTE]

On 7/6/2024 at 4:32 PM, Gotham Bus Co said:

 

Why should NJT operate Rockland County service? Are NJ taxpayers legally required to subsidize Rockland residents?

You do realize NJT runs into Orange Co? Look up route 196 and 197

[NJTE]

2 hours ago, NJTE said:

-The budget line item does show a halving *in FY24 (pictured here) which reflects everything that reverted (ONE, transdev, A&C, academy emergency 24s)

*(Correction: from)

[B35 via Church]

18 hours ago, JAzumah said:

NJT is unlikely to give them the buses without pressure. In addition, the voluntary insurance companies do not want private bus companies operating commuter routes. Assigned risk for this work is about $100,000/bus

If this is your way of saying it's NJT or bust, well I'd say those riders are assed out then.

18 hours ago, JAzumah said:

Rockland Coaches was marketed as access to/from NYC. NJT provides access everywhere. There is a difference in purpose...and marketing. I assume fares from NJ to Rockland County existed, but I never saw them marketed....

Difference in purpose & marketing, yet those routes were just as open door as the Oradell routes....

[Gotham Bus Co]

16 hours ago, NJTE said:

You do realize NJT runs into Orange Co? Look up route 196 and 197

How much of Orange County does NJT cover? Just over the border.

How much of Rockland County does NJT subsidize by giving buses to Rockland Coaches? Huge swaths.

[checkmatechamp13]

On 7/7/2024 at 9:06 AM, B35 via Church said:

Yeah, I don't disagree with quicker service - I just don't think it should necessarily be NJT's responsibility to run service to Rockland County.... To be clear, my sentiment isn't that people should be left with nothing; have some other private operator swoop through & take over the remaining Coach USA Rockland Coaches routes, I have zero issue....

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that a lot of NJ patrons would find (improved bus) service to/from Rockland useful.... Back when R&T (red & tan) was a thing, up until where we are now with Coach USA Rockland Coaches, I have never experienced anything resembling a strong enough patronizing of folks in NJ seeking Rockland.... I get the concept of latent demand, but rhetorically speaking, where are these people? One thing I've noticed when I used to ride those routes, is that the folks in NE Bergen County past a certain point a] tend to frown upon people that use the Rockland Coaches buses & NJT bus interchangeably & b] any form of intra-NJ travel.... Always found that to be bizarre.....

I really don't want to harp on the #165 in-particular, but since you mention it, I can't agree with any serving of the #165 in any portion of Rockland County, regardless of whatever it does [between the time it comes out of the tunnel] & [Westwood]... I'd say the current rendition of the route is good right where it is in Westwood & doesn't need yet another variant of the thing....

The PVL running like hot garbage is the bigger issue AFAIC.

My thinking with routes like the #165/166 is that it would provide more ridership to justify more service on the super-express variants, which allow people from to avoid that slow drag through Hudson and southern Bergen Counties. The other thing is the lack of integration between the fare systems gets annoying...it's bad enough that there's very limited integration between the NJT bus and rail system fares, but on top of that, Rockland Coaches has its own fare structure (and they charge you a "fuel surcharge" on top of that). If someone has an NJT monthly pass for say, Englewood - NYC, they can also use that for Englewood - Bergenfield, but if somebody has a Rockland Coaches monthly pass, they can pretty much only use that within the specific corridor that they bought the pass for (and of course, the limited service available doesn't help either). 

19 hours ago, JAzumah said:

They didn't want to cover the ex-DeCamp routes either. I expect them to intervene, but with less of a scale than in the DeCamp scenario. It will strictly be driven by politics.

Their intervention in the DeCamp situation was a step over nothing, so if that's the case in Rockland, those folks are screwed.

1 hour ago, Gotham Bus Co said:

How much of Orange County does NJT cover? Just over the border.

How much of Rockland County does NJT subsidize by giving buses to Rockland Coaches? Huge swaths.

If by "just over the border" you mean over 10 miles, then yes, that would be correct. 

[NJTE]

8 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co said:

How much of Orange County does NJT cover? Just over the border.

How much of Rockland County does NJT subsidize by giving buses to Rockland Coaches? Huge swaths.

And? NJT once had routes to Spring Valley and Nyack. NJT even had routes to Allentown. People didn’t complain then, what’s different now. I wouldn’t want people to have no public transportation to the biggest city in the country all because it isn’t in the state the transportation provider is named for. This is like saying NJT shouldn’t run service to Port Jervis on behalf of MNR because it isn’t in NJ.