Dear Editor:
The following is an open letter to NJ Transit.
Your bus service during the morning rush hour is astonishingly abysmal. Between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., I’ve waited at my uptown stop up to 30 minutes for a bus going down Washington Street to the PATH. When a bus finally arrives, there are often a couple more right behind it. With three lines serving that direction (the 22, 89, and 126) and with a high concentration of commuters in our city, why are you not addressing this scheduling/timing problem?
Recently I witnessed a driver who was impatient with the long line of commuters boarding his bus try to close the door on several riders, after we all had been waiting in the rain for almost 30 minutes. He suggested (rudely) that we wait for the next bus. But of course, there was no bus in sight. Since when is that good customer service? And don’t get me started on the service from the PATH at the end of the workday. Try asking the NJ Transit worker who monitors the booth there when the next buses parked at the PATH are leaving? You’ll either get an earful of unprintable responses, or no answer at all. I guess it’s not his job either to address the needs of your many customers.
As a longtime Hoboken resident who remembers when NJ Transit did not have a monopoly on our bus commute (remember the Red Apple line??) I find myself hoping some other company will start up a new bus service. Till then I’ll walk (and save my money). I work too hard to be bullied by my commute each day.
Signed,
A Fed-up Commuter