What happens when years of neglect catch up with a commuter railroad? Look no further than New Jersey, where NJ Transit is in the midst of a meltdown. This should serve as a warning to Connecticut.
Hardly a day goes by without
hearing of train woes in the Garden State, many of them tied to broken down
trains or catenary (overhead power wires) being snagged in Penn Station. Service is abysmal and yet a 15%
fare hike is going to effect July 1st.
Adding to the woes, an impending
strike by locomotive engineers after four years of arbitration and no
contract.
What happened? About a dozen years of under-investment in
the railroad dating back to the term of Governor Chris Christie who famously
cancelled plans to build a badly needed new tunnel under the Hudson River.
When Governor Phil Murphy was
elected in 2017 he promised to change all that, but in recent years he’s taken
money that was to be spent on capital improvements and spent it instead on
operations. That’s a big
no-no.
Like Metro-North, NJ Transit
has never recovered from Covid with ridership hovering at about 70% of
pre-pandemic levels. Fewer riders means less revenue for what was already a
money-losing operation.
But the railroad’s woes are
now offering potential competition from entrepreneur Joe Colangelo, the 39 year
old founder and CEO of Boxcar.
Joe Colangelo
You might remember him as the
guy who started a parking app for rail commuters before the pandemic, when
ridership was soaring and station parking was scarce. He still runs that business, managing 1500
parking spaces near stations in four states (including 140 spaces in New Canaan,
Greenwich & Darien), all bookable on their app.
But Boxcar’s real innovation
is running 46 to 56 seat luxury motor coaches from 12 NJ bedroom communities
into midtown Manhattan. They offer
guaranteed seats, free Wi-Fi and amazing customer service… at a price.
“Our customers are willing to
trade money for time and convenience,” says Colangelo, a Navy veteran who served
in Afghanistan. Members pay $30 a month and get a 33% discount on fares which
are 50 – 100% higher than the train fare.
“Half of our customers used to ride the train,” says Colangelo. But he says many had a bad experience on the subway getting from Penn Station to their offices and won’t go back. Boxcar offers a one-seat ride with 65 runs a day Tuesday through Thursday and a dozen trips on Fridays.
“About two thirds of our
riders say if the bus wasn’t available, they’d drive,” he adds.
Boxcar charters its buses from
14 different companies and each run has a dedicated driver, “giving riders a
relationship, like with a doorman”.
Every run is monitored from 5
am to 8 pm and if it’s as little as 2 minutes late, each passenger is given a
text update. If there’s no AC on the bus,
your ride is free (something that happened just four times on 1200 runs last
year). They even keep an extra bus on
standby should any problems arise.
Boxcar is ready to expand
service to meet demand. “We know where
our next 100 bus charters will come from,” says the boss. And yes, their operation is already profitable.
Arriving in Manhattan
Boxcar experimented with bus service
from New Canaan and Darien but I-95 traffic made their runs too slow. Colangelo expects that, after the November
elections, NY Governor Hochul will reverse her opposition to congestion
pricing, car traffic will lighten and bus service from Connecticut might be possible.
Competition is a good thing,
especially for poorly managed transit systems more beholden to their political
funders than their fare-paying passengers.
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