Livingston Considers Starting Commuter Shuttle Service to South Orange

On Monday night, the Livingston Township Council mulled over starting a shuttle service for commuters between the and the . 

Alan Karpas, chairman of the township's Vision 20/20 committee, said in the past many residents complained Livingston is "not commuter friendly" in a survey passed around last year to gauge how the community can be improved. 

In an attempt to fix that, Karpas and Don Watt, vice president of Transoptions, a transportation non-profit organization, studied the issue and came up with a proposal to run a commuter van from the mall's parking lot to the South Orange train station, which has New Jersey Transit trains heading to New York City and . 

Under the proposal, the 15-passenger van would run from 6 to 10 a.m. and 4 to 9 p.m. from the Livingston Mall, where there would be free commuter parking. 

Karpas and Watt said the service would cost about $450 per day for the driver, vehicle and insurance, or $54,000 for a six-month trial run.  They proposed charging passengers $2 per ride and the shuttle would need a total of 25 riders per hour to break even. 

Besides sending workers to New York City and Hoboken, the shuttle could also be used for Day-trippers and as an alternative commuting system for workers at the Livingston Mall and Saint Barnabas Medical Center, Karpas said.

The township has wrestled with improving commuter accessibility to New York City for about 12 years, Mayor Stephen Santola said. 

Money, of course, is a major concern, and Santola and other council members asked Karpas and Watt to see if any local businesses or South Orange downtown businesses would be interested in contributing funds to help offset the cost.

Selling ads was another possible source of funding, and Watt said a wrap-around bus ad could go for $5,000 a month. 

South Orange's NJ Transit parking lot has been filled to capacity ever since it opened, making it hard for commuters to secure a parking spot.  With this shuttle service, residents of all towns will be able to utilize the train station without needing a spot to park.

Reached in South Orange on Tuesday, Alex Torpey, the South Orange Village President, appeared ready to welcome Livingston residents to the downtown with open arms.

“I think that people, not just in South Orange, but in surrounding towns, see our town as kind of a transit destination,” Torpey told Patch.  “We’ll be happy to have Livingston residents come use our train station, we have a lot of West Orange residents that do so also, and that will hopefully be good for businesses in South Orange as well.”

South Orange Interim Editor Scott Egelberg contributed to this report.