The NJ Transit Blues
How lack of investment in public transit will humiliate us in front of the entire world
With news that the 2026 World Cup Final will be held here in the Garden State, many wonder: Is New Jersey Transit up to the task? New Jersey Transit has dealt with a number of issues over the last several years. Just last December, the Morristown-Essex line was partially shut down for two weeks, affecting thousands of daily commuters who rely on it for transportation. For almost a year now half of the staircases at Metropark Station in Woodbridge have been closed for repair with no sign of progress, forcing hundreds of commuters to cram into what limited space there is. Newark Penn Station has seen repairs on elevators and escalators go on for weeks causing similar problems.
Despite the need for investment, the New Jersey state government has chronically underfunded NJT despite promises by Gov. Phil Murphy to make New Jersey the “forefront of the fight against climate change.” Public transportation is one of the only adequate ways to fight climate change, and New Jersey is already one of the best in the nation in terms of public transit. However, that proud reputation is fading. New Jersey ranks as the worst in the nation for train quality. This is in part because NJ puts far more burden on the consumer than the taxpayer regarding public transit. As a result, NJT has a one-billion-dollar deficit. The MTA in New York, WMATA in D.C., SEPTA in Philadelphia, and MBTA in Boston all see funding by taxpayers of over fifty percent, while NJT sees only around ten percent taxpayer funding, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective.
It should be no surprise then that New Jersey Transit is the way that it is. All of this is coming at a time when self-described “America’s Greenest Governor” Phil Murphy, plans to spend ten billion dollars on highway expansion. Investment in our state highways is needed to improve road quality but more lanes is neither good for the environment nor dose it reduce traffic congestion. Instead of spending some of that money on NJT, the plan is to increase fares by fifteen percent. This is a regressive policy move that only hurts everyday working-class New Jerseyans who rely on transit, the burden should not be on them.
Public benefits require a shared public burden. It’s why your federal tax dollars go to help rural schools in Pennsylvania or help fund someone’s grandma’s Medicare in Florida. By making a public service a private burden on those who use it it only serves as a disincentive to use the service. This will mean that NJTs funding issues will only get worse and so will everyones drive as more commuters are forced onto the highway. With the ongoing legal battle between New Jersey commuters and New York City over congestion pricing I’m not sure this is something we want to be doing either. The cost of living crisis for those in New Jersey is already bad enough and we have the money to fix this problem. Governor Murphy has insisted on eliminating the Corporate Business Tax Surcharge which affects multinational companies like Amazon or Walmart. This generates nearly one billion dollars a year in annual revenues for the state, and it’s money that could be spent on NJT as proposed by Jersey City Mayor and Democratic candidate for governor Steven Fulop. This would mean that the proposed investments to expand the NJ Turnpike would also be able to continue unaffected while still funding NJT. State Senate President Nicholas Scutari has also signaled his support for this move meaning that Gov. Murphy is the only thing standing in the way. However, his nomination of Francis K. O’Connor, a former staffer of a road-tolling company to serve as the new NJDOT head signals his commitment to further supporting transit as unlikely.
With humanity turning its collective gaze toward New Jersey for the final showdown of the world’s largest sporting event it is imperative that we make the necessary investments in public transportation now. Not just for the one day but for every day before and after it so that the people of New Jersey can shine with pride at the example it sets as a global leader in mass public transit. If we fail to do so not only will we embarrass ourselves on the global stage but make the lives of our citizens significantly harder for seemingly no reason at all.
