Coach USA ONE Bus has eliminated Sunday and evening service effective July 17th, 2023, and plans to eliminate all service effective October 8th, 2023.

These routes provide a vital service throughout all aspects of their service span, and this service reduction would negatively impact residents of the neighborhoods in Orange, East Orange, South Orange, Newark, and Elizabeth that depend on them for affordable, sustainable transportation. Additionally, these bus routes allow residents to access employment and major commercial areas in the Downtown areas of all of these municipalities, as well as the Central Avenue corridor and Jersey Gardens Mall. 

Additionally, the #44 is the only route that provides evening or Sunday service to the VA Hospital in East Orange (the #97 only serves the VA Hospital during weekday rush hours), and the facility is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Likewise, the #31 provides connections to University Hospital in the Central Ward of Newark.

The current NJ Transit alternatives provided only serve a small portion of the affected riders, as for the most part, these routes are the only ones along their respective corridors. (Frelinghuysen Avenue, Central Avenue, South Orange Avenue, Tremont Avenue, Elizabeth Avenue, and the eastern end of Jersey Street are only served by Coach USA ONE Bus routes). These riders would be forced to endure long walks in all types of weather conditions and in many cases, through areas where crime is a concern (and in the case of the #24A/B in particular, through desolate industrial areas). The removal of service will also hinder efforts to revitalize certain corridors, as the lack of connectivity will make them less desirable as areas to live, work, shop, or operate a business.

"Low ridership" is not an issue, as these routes all serve dense, urban corridors with high percentages of autoless households. If anything, more service is warranted, as many nationwide redesigns (including the NewBus Newark plan which omits the Coach USA ONE Bus routes) have shown that boosting service to "show up and go" levels in these types of corridors can boost ridership if advertised properly.

NJ Transit should step in and assist in any way possible. The #2, #84, and #88 are contracted out to Coach USA, so a similar process can likely be used to have the #24A/B, #31, and #44 operated by NJ Transit under contract to Coach USA. If this is not feasible in a rapid manner, then NJ Transit should work to use nearby routes to cover different portions of the ONE Bus routes (e.g. Branches/extensions of the #1, #26, #52, #58, #59, #71, or #73 can be used to provide piecemeal coverage of these corridors until a more permanent solution can be found). 

This issue needs to be resolved, so that our communities can continue receive the affordable, sustainable transportation that they need and deserve.