Over 2,300 residents across Montclair, Bloomfield and Glen Ridge responded to the township’s NJ Transit survey, and the message is consistent across all three towns: the current system isn’t working, and residents want more service, especially on weekends.
“The latent demand is there,” said Nick Giglia, founder of ROUTE, Restore Our Transit in Essex, a local transit advocacy group. Latent demand, in transit planning terms, means the riders are ready and willing, the service just isn’t there to meet them. “These communities are already transit oriented. We’re not trying to create transit riders out of nowhere.”
Giglia joined The Montclair Pod hosts Farnoosh and Mike this week to break down what the numbers mean, speaking as an independent advocate, not as part of the township working group that ran the survey.
What the NJ Transit Montclair Survey Found
The numbers tell a clear story:
- 84% of respondents want more frequent weekend train service
- 67% want weekend trains to run all the way to Montclair State University
- 80% of respondents travel to New York City on weekends, yet on weekends and off-peak weekdays
- 50% of travelers resort to driving.
- 75% cited infrequent or non-existent off-peak service as the top obstacle when asked what barriers keep them from taking the bus or train to New York City
That pattern carries particular weight. Montclair has long been described as a commuter town, built around the morning rush into the city and the evening ride home. The survey suggests that identity no longer fits.
“The system is optimized for how things might have been maybe 20, 30 years ago,” Giglia said. “What’s happened across our region is we’ve had different mobility patterns with hybrid work, people who don’t work a standard Monday to Friday, nine to five schedule, people like students and seniors, people who are transit dependent. This is a group of people who want transit and want to use transit far beyond simply going into the city in the morning and coming back out in the afternoon.”
How Montclair Commuters Are Getting Around Without NJ Transit
The service gap isn’t stopping people from traveling. It’s changing how they do it, and adding traffic in the process.
Residents are driving to Secaucus Junction, taking the light rail in Bloomfield into Newark, using the PATH train into Manhattan and in some cases driving all the way to Hoboken or Jersey City to avoid gaps in local service. The trips are still happening. They’re just happening by car.
Part of that shift traces back to 2023, when DeCamp Bus Lines shut down its commuter service and left a hole in the regional network. Boxcar, a private bus company, stepped in to serve the Montclair-to-Manhattan route and now ranks as the most-used mode for weekday peak travel. But Boxcar doesn’t support travel inside New Jersey, offers no discounted tickets for students or seniors and runs primarily during peak hours. Off-peak and weekends remain uncovered.
Giglia founded ROUTE after a 2024 hockey game trip made the problem impossible to ignore. He drove to Secaucus Junction with his young son, thinking it was the easiest option. On the way back, his son refused to walk the mile to the car. “I carried him, 50 pounds of dead weight over my shoulder,” Giglia said, “all the while thinking I was a shorter walk to the train station and two DeCamp stops from my house.”
What It Would Actually Cost to Fix Weekend Train Service
The gap between what residents want and what exists comes down to funding, not infrastructure.
“Less than half a percent of New Jersey Transit’s overall operating budget would give us hourly weekend service between Hoboken and MSU,” Giglia said. “We are not talking about a lot of money. We’re not talking about any equipment purchase or infrastructure requirements. It would just have to be funded.”
Giglia assured that new multilevel rail cars are already being delivered and tested on nearby lines, with recent runs through Summit and Maplewood. The hardware is there. ROUTE’s current ask, beyond the hourly weekend service, is for funded studies and cost figures to restore seven-day service across the former DeCamp territory, which would extend coverage to the north side of Bloomfield, Verona, the Caldwells and Belleville.
The urgency goes beyond the daily commute. MetLife Stadium will be hosting eight World Cup matches this summer, starting June 13. NJ Transit’s official mobility plan routes fans by rail to Secaucus Junction and then onto dedicated bus transit ways to the stadium, with the goal of moving 20,000 people an hour. For a system residents are already telling you can’t handle a regular weekend, that’s a significant stress test.
Giglia, who attended North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority planning meetings on this in March, was direct: “I’m getting a lot of concerned messages from people who still have to go to work during that time.”
If you have a World Cup ticket, buy your transit ticket early at njtransit.com. If you want to push for the service changes the survey is calling for, find ROUTE at essexroute.org or follow @EssexRoute on Instagram. And for more on Montclair’s long-running transit fight, read the Montclair Pod’s earlier coverage of the weekend service push.
