Not to be outdone by the Port Authority, which unveiled an updated website last week, NJ Transit has pulled off a website makeover of its own. The new site is a clear improvement for riders and includes a better trip planner, more visible service alerts, and a cleaner overall layout that streamlines access to important information.

The new site makes it easier for riders to find bus information, organizing bus routes by county and adding a tool that allows users to enter an address and get back a list of nearby bus routes. Impressively, the site even lists the phone numbers, websites, and coverage areas of private bus carriers.

This makeover extends to public interest items like lists of board members and meetings, which were difficult to find at the old site. But NJ Transit could go further by providing easy access to two pieces of information that are critical for policymakers, advocates, and interested members of the public: its current operating and capital budgets. Currently, these can be found only by digging through the minutes of the board meetings during which the budgets were approved (the current budgets were approved in July). It would be simple to separate out the budgets and display them more prominently, as some of NJ Transit’s peer agencies do.

For example, the MTA posts its 5-year capital program online and makes its operating budget available before its board even approves it (though, as Ben Kabak points out, the MTA’s website is not nearly as streamlined as NJ Transit’s). Washington, DC’s WMATA takes transparency to a remarkable level, posting not only its capital and operating budgets but also internal audits, union contracts, and even the history of Metro fare increases. As a public agency that hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans rely on, NJ Transit should follow suit.