Few New Jerseyans use public transit regularly, but most still oppose service cuts: poll

The vast majority of New Jerseyans rarely or never use public transit, but most still oppose any potential NJ Transit service cuts and fare hikes, a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released today finds.

According to the poll, which was conducted nearly two months ago, just 20% of New Jersey adults use public transit somewhat regularly: 6% said they use it every day, 7% said a few days a week, and 7% said a few days a month. Nearly half of respondents, 47%, said they never take public transit, and another 32% said they only take it a few times a year.

All told, that means 79% of New Jerseyans don’t have regular interactions with the state’s public transit system, most of which is operated by NJ Transit. Yet despite that low self-reported ridership rate, when asked whether they’d support various cost-cutting measures to solve NJ Transit’s projected budget deficit, most respondents balked.

Just 19% of respondents said they’d strongly or somewhat support cutting NJ Transit service, while 78% said they were somewhat or strongly opposed. A modestly higher 30% of respondents said they would somewhat or strongly support raising fares – which Gov. Phil Murphy has worked to prevent during his tenure – versus 67% who were somewhat or strongly opposed.

Interestingly, there were only minor differences in responses between transit riders and non-transit riders; each group was strongly opposed to service cuts or fare hikes.

Both transit-riding and non-transit-riding New Jerseyans indicated support for increasing direct state aid to NJ Transit instead, something that transit advocates have pushed for in this year’s state budget. 66% of respondents said they’d somewhat or strongly support a boost in state aid, while 29% were somewhat or strongly opposed.

“With ridership not yet back at pre-pandemic levels and with riders accustomed to no fare increases in the last eight years, most New Jerseyans place the onus on the state government to keep NJ Transit afloat,” Rutgers-Eagleton director Ashely Koning said in a statement accompanying the poll.

As for the quality of NJ Transit itself, respondents gave mixed grades. 5% said it was excellent, 35% said it was good, 31% said it was only fair, and 14% said it was poor.

The Rutgers-Eagleton Poll was in the field from April 27-May 5 with a sample size of approximately 500 New Jersey adults. The public transit questions were part of a larger poll of 1,002 New Jersey adults with a margin of error of +/- 3.6%; it’s not clear what the margin of error is on the smaller subsample.