As the Bergen Record‘s John Cichowski wrote earlier, a proposed 25% fare increase and statewide service cuts on NJ Transit “mean much more pain for those on the bottom rungs than they do for those at the middle and the top.” Do New Jersey officials know how much more pain? Tri-State Transportation Campaign has filed a NJ Open Public Records Act request seeking proof that NJ Transit has performed a federally mandated “equity analysis” — a hard look at the impacts of fare and service changes, available travel alternatives and proposed mitigation of impacts on minority and low-income communities.
At this point, no such documentation has been made available by NJ Transit. The Federal Transit Administration requires all transit agencies receiving aid to prepare the multi-point analysis before any fare increase or service change, in order to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). Guidance and details are provided in FTA Circular 4702.1A.
[Update: According to NJ Transit, this necessary analysis “is not yet complete.”]
I strongly believe that the huge rate hike and cuts in service is too hard on low income people and minority populations. The upper income people and rich are not getting a gas tax hike and the suffering are the low income riders. Chris Christie said he wants to end “the patronage hiring that has typified its past.” Well, only 200 employees out of 11,000 were cut so it looks like the NJ Transit executive director did not find many “patronage hires.” It was a false justification for Chris Christie to raise fares and cut service at NJ Transit. Christie wont even raise the millionaires tax.
Look at this..good news!
http://www.communitybenefits.org/downloads/UrbanHabitat_Transit_Breakthrough_2_22_10.pdf
Oil crunch is coming and will be worse than the current financial crisis. Everybody will be running around like chickens without a head looking for mass transit options. Chris Christie is living in the dark ages. He does not believe in global warming and thinks that oil will last forever. The suburbs will become the slum of the future because they depend on cars only and now Christie is killing mass transit when we are running out of oil. His logic is backwards.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/07/branson-warns-peak-oil-close
[…] Do Proposed NJ Transit Cuts Adhere to Civil Rights Laws? TSTC Investigates (MTR) […]
It’s clear that this was a mandate from Christie – cut overhead, increase fares – that he’d push through regardless of the results of any Equity Analysis. Does the federal mandate require that the LoS change be equitable, or just that the equitability impacts be understood?
MRB, An agency (in this case NJTransit) instituting a service change/fare increase proposal must evaluate the impacts on lower income and minority populations and make adjustments to reduce this impact.
The agency is supposed to do this analysis in the planning and programming stages, before a plan is created.
[…] Transit hasn’t completed it, according to a response to TSTC’s Open Public Records Request last week. TSTC also sent maps showing the disproportionate impact of the cuts on cities like Newark, […]
[…] impact on low-income and minority populations. The release, in response to Tri-State’s Open Public Records request a couple of weeks ago, came only days before the NJ Transit Board voted to approve the increases […]