Upon boarding, passengers received at two different kinds of slips to identify which zone they boarded in, to help the conductor collect additional fares at the Montclair town line. While this got rid of arbitrary premiums for some short trips, it was a complicated system.
The two zones overlapped in Montclair, so riders from Montclair could go in either direction on a one-zone fare, but riders passing through Montclair had to pay for two zones. In 1915, the Bloomfield Avenue trolley car line from Caldwell to Newark was divided into two fare zones, one from Montclair to Newark, and another from Montclair to Caldwell. This way, no short station-to-station trips require an interzone fare. Trips through 3 or more fare zones incur a distance-based charge. In Denver, the light rail system is divided into concentric fare zones.Īny trip within 1 or 2 fare zones requires a local fare. The solution is to create some overlap between the fare zones. But In a contiguous urban area like Bayonne and Jersey City, the zone boundary has to be somewhere arbitrary. In some cases, zone boundaries are geographic obstacles, like rivers, bridges, or mountains. The seat is occupied for longer, and the bus spends more time on the road. It actually costs NJ Transit more to provide the four-mile trip in this case. A trip of one mile from Bayonne to Jersey City, or even half a mile, will cost $2.35.Ī one-mile trip shouldn’t cost more than a four-mile trip. Yet at the same time, any trip that crosses the city line will incur a 2-zone fare. All of Bayonne lies within one fare zone, and all of Jersey City lies within another.Īny trip that’s entirely within Jersey City costs $1.50, the one-zone fare. A trip of as little of a few blocks can count as a two-zone fare, but you can travel miles and miles and pay for just one zone.īetween Jersey City and Bayonne, the fare boundary is at the city line. This depends on where the fare zone boundary is. While zone fares are supposed to correspond to distance traveled, they don’t always. Zone fares also help raise additional revenue for NJ Transit without raising fares for everyone. Riders who occupy their seat for a long time pay more, and short-distance riders pay less. The amount that the passenger pays is supposed to correspond to the distance they travel, which is fair. A one-zone ride costs $1.50, a two-zone ride 2.35, a three-zone ride $2.90, etc. Unlike most bus systems in the county, NJ Transit riders pay a distance-based fare.