NJ Transit Delays Parking Privatization

March 21st, 2011 by Jay Corbalis

The Asbury Park Press ran a good article over the weekend updating the status of NJ Transit’s initiative to privatize parking at 81 of its busiest stations, a program creatively dubbed “SPACES”. Apparently, the process is more complicated than they first anticipated, thanks in part to the large number of properties and existing ownership and managament arrangements. As a result, Transit will delay the release of its Request for Proposals (the next step in the process, originally scheduled to be released this month) until the summer, with the goal of finalizing the program “sometime this fall.”

Most significant to Garden State Smart Growth readers however were the comments made about the role transit-oriented development in this process: “The parking initiative specifically encourages transit-oriented developments and will in no way limit our ability to do TODs (transit-oriented developments) in the future,” (NJ Transit spokesman) Stessel said. “Jim Weinstein believes that this initiative could actually accelerate the pace of TOD.” The Request for Proposals will provide more detail about how TOD will be addressed within the program.

NJ Transit Moves Slowly on Parking (Asbury Park Press)