The Tuesday afternoon crowd, or lack thereof, at the Red Bank train station parking lot. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
” The adjustments will assist NJ TRANSIT in implementing maintenance of the lots which, in some locations, had been deferred,” NJ Transit spokesman John Chartier wrote in response to questions from redbankgreen.
“These locations were identified as stations where the disparity between current and local market levels were greatest. While the updated rates bring prices closer to—though still below—local market levels, we recognize that any increase can be challenging, and we appreciate our customers’ understanding.”
The hike puts the cost to park before 11 am weekdays at Red Bank far above the other two neighboring stations on the North Jersey Coast line.
The cost for an annual parking permit at the Little Silver station is $360 per year. Middletown costs $315 a year. Those two lots are owned by the municipalities in which they sit. In Red Bank, the lots are the property of NJ Transit.
For at least one Red Bank family, the move has prompted them to stop buying an annual parking pass altogether.
Joe Lobosco says his wife, who commutes several times a week via NJ Transit train, had been buying the $480 annual parking permit for years.
Now she either buys a single daily parking pass or Joe, who is retired, drives her to and from the train station.
“That lot is mostly empty, so it’s not like there’s a premium for those spaces,” Lobosco said. “I could see, you know, there’s demand for the spaces, we can justify. That was a little irksome.”
Lobosco and his wife believe they’re not alone. They’ve noticed an uptick in commuters being dropped off and picked up by family members on each end of the commute.
The empty lots are a far cry from his days as a commuter when people sat on wait lists for a monthly or annual commuter parking pass.
“You would put your name in and get an email in April, ‘congratulations, you got a spot,” he recalled.
Source: NJ Transit ridership data
Parking in the lots is free on weekends and after 11 am on weekdays. In recent years, they have become noticeably more full in off-hours, when visitors to the Count Basie Center for the Arts and other downtown attractions park there.
The parking lots themselves are expected to be transformed if the agency’s designated developer, Denholtz, gets permission from the Red Bank Planning Board to build up to 350 apartments, parking garages and retail space on the tract.
The Train Station Redevelopment Plan approved by the Borough Council last year calls for the project to include a maximum of 725 parking spaces in lots, garages and on streets.
A minimum of 150 of those spaces must be set aside for commuters or the public. That’s a steep drop from the current 479 parking spaces in the six lots, of which, thanks to the permit fee hike scaring off Joe Lobosco, at least one additional spot sits empty from Monday to Friday.
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.
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