Announcing: Downtown Bus Service
Today is an historic day at Boxcar. After six years of running buses (happy anniversary, btw) we are announcing our first-ever Downtown Manhattan bus. The initial run will be a single, AM-only motor coach getting our Morris Meteor financial-district commuters to work in peace, quiet, and comfort.
This initial run will leave Convent Station, Madison, and Chatham in the morning only and leave at 5:45, 5:55, and 6:00 am respectively. This route will commence this coming Tuesday, July 18th.
For the next 72 hours, customers can purchase at a significant discount of only $10.99 for members and $16.49 for non-members. After this, the ticket price will adjust to $24.99 face/$16.73 members per trip. You can join as a member in the left-hand menu of the app or here.
If you're a member, you can book at this special rate until Tuesday morning days and reserve at this lower rate up to 90 days in advance!
This run will operate three days a weeks (Tu-Th) morning-only. The summer will offer a good chance for us to dial in the downtown drop-offs and timing and determine if there are any major adjustments that will be needed before the fall commuting surge.
If all goes well, after Labor day we will add more times, add evening service, and offer this along other routes that we serve in NJ.
Every time that Boxcar adds a new bus and fills it up, we know that roughly 2/3rds of those riders are ditching their cars to ride Boxcar. While that is only 35 fewer cars off the road, it's 35 cars that are otherwise stuck in idling traffic many days a week. 35 cars clogging our major arteries filled with commuters that are aggravated and unproductive.
The more Boxcar grows, the less congestion that we'll see, the less traffic all of Boxcar's buses will face. This will make it easier to run more buses, and the more cars we'll get off the road. This is the virtuous cycle we're in. While it's a big hill to climb, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and this is our first step in serving an area outside of midtown.
Boxcar's Downtown Route Map:
Three Stops:
- Varick/Franklin (Holland Tunnel)
- Barclay/Broadway (City Hall)
- Barclay/West (WTC/Goldman)
Like everything we do, we'll continue to assess whether this is the right route or might benefit from improvement, so please let us know what you think and, if you ride it, whether it's enjoyable.
