Until the 1960s, New Jersey had excellent bus transportation. Many bus companies competed to take people from one place to another. Consumers chose companies that gave them the most convenient schedules, routes, and prices.
During the 1960s, New Jersey state government enacted a series of laws that gave it total control over private bus companies. The state decided where companies could run their buses, when they could run them, and how much they could charge. This was done “in the public interest.” As a result, almost every bus company in New Jersey was forced out of business by the mid-1970s. This created a “crisis.”
To fix this crisis, New Jersey created New Jersey Transit. It was one socialist bus company owned and operated by state government. New Jersey then exempted New Jersey transit from having to comply with the state laws that had driven all of New Jersey’s private bus companies out of business. The state also passed new laws giving New Jersey Transit an absolute monopoly. Since then, it has been a crime for any private business to compete with New Jersey Transit.
That is why we now have a public transportation “crisis” in New Jersey. For years, Atlantic City casinos could not find enough qualified workers because there was no convenient public transportation between Atlantic City and Vineland. Last October, after years of political lobbying, New Jersey Transit and the South Jersey Transportation Authority began running one bus a day between Vineland and Atlantic City.
This week, the South Jersey Transportation Authority announced it was now spending $5 million to run “free” bus shuttles throughout South Jersey. The $5 million is from a new tax on New Jersey businesses imposed last year by Governor Phil Murphy and the Democratic majority in the New Jersey Legislature.
There is no need for any tax money to pay for any public transportation. All that is needed is for the state to repeal current laws making in a crime for private businesses to compete with New Jersey transit. If that were done, dozens of private companies would immediately take people where they needed to be for affordable fairs. This is already done with “guaguas” in Puerto Reco and the Dominican Republic. They are called “rapiditors,”, “camiionetas,”, “microbuses,” “rutas,” and “micros,” in Central America.
LibertyAndProsperity.com is a tax-exempt, non-political education organization of roughly 200 citizens who mostly live near Atlantic City, New Jersey. We formed this group in 2003. We volunteer our time and money to maintain this website. We do our best to post accurate information. However, we admit we make mistakes from time to time. If you see any mistakes or inaccurate, misleading, outdated, or incomplete information in this or any of our posts, please let us know. We will do our best to correct the problem as soon as possible. Please email us at info@libertyandprosperity.com or telephone (609) 927-7333.
If you agree with this post, please share it now on Facebook or Twitter by clicking the “share” icons above and below each post. Please copy and paste a short paragraph as a “teaser” when you re-post.
Also, because Facebook, YouTube and other social media often falsely claim our posts violate their “community standards”, they greatly restrict, “throttle back” or “shadow ban” our posts. Please help us overcome that by sharing our posts wherever you can, as often as you can. Please copy and paste the URL link above or from the Twitter share button to the “comments” section of your favorite sites like Patch.com or PressofAtlanticCity.com. Please also email it to your friends. Open and use an alternate social media site like Gab.com.
Finally, please subscribe to our weekly email updates. Enter your email address, name, city and state in the spaces near the top of our home page at Homepage – Liberty and Prosperity. Then click the red “subscribe” button. Or contact us at info@libertyandprosperity.com, (609) 927-7333, or the below address. Thanks.
Seth Grossman, Executive Director
LibertyAndProsperity.com
453 Shore Road
Somers Point, NJ 08244
