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No other city in America is as reliant on mass transit as New York, with millions of daily riders usually cramming into subway cars, trains and buses run by sprawling public agencies.
But, before the coronavirus pandemic, more than 100,000 commuters also depended on a string of private bus companies to get them to their jobs in the city.
Now, however, with fear of infection keeping most workers away from their offices even as New York slowly reopens, that herd of buses has thinned, and the companies that operate them are struggling to survive.
Already, one of the oldest commuter-bus companies in the New York region has suspended all of its operations. Others, with ridership down 90% or more from pre-pandemic levels, have drastically reduced service and are pleading for financial help from the federal government.
“This is by far the largest challenge we’ve faced,” said Jonathan DeCamp, the sixth generation of his family to run DeCamp Bus Lines, which chose to halt operations this month for the first time in its 150-year history.
“Through World War I, World War II, 9/11, the housing crisis, Hurricane Sandy, people were still going to work,” DeCamp said from his company’s headquarters in suburban Montclair, New Jersey. “Right now, you’re just seeing nobody going to work.”
DeCamp’s daily ridership had fallen from more than 6,500 passengers to less than 400, DeCamp said. With no pickup in sight, he felt he had no choice but to park his fleet of about 50 buses and furlough his workforce, which included about 110 unionized drivers and mechanics.
Laying off the workers, some of whom had worked for DeCamp for more than 30 years, was “soul-crushing,” he said.
Transportation companies often have to adjust schedules to account for fluctuations in demand, but they are loath to suspend service altogether because loyal customers may have no alternative. That is one reason so many private operators are still running buses despite the slim ridership.
“We need help,” said Mark Leo, a co-owner of Lakeland Bus Lines, based in Dover, New Jersey. “If we don’t get some help soon, we’re going to be doing the same thing DeCamp’s doing.”
Before the pandemic, Lakeland carried about 6,000 passengers a day between suburbs in northern New Jersey and Manhattan. In recent weeks, ridership has been a paltry 400 to 500 riders, with some buses carrying as few as three passengers, Leo said.
Like most private carriers in the region, Lakeland temporarily suspended service four months ago when the governors of New York and New Jersey imposed a virtual lockdown, shutting down all but the most essential services and ordering most residents to stay home.
Before that, bus traffic into Manhattan had reached its limits, leaving buses backed up through the Lincoln Tunnel into New Jersey every weekday morning.
New Jersey Transit, a statewide public agency, carried about 100,000 riders across the Hudson River before the outbreak, comparable to the number of commuters who relied on private companies. (New Jersey Transit’s daily bus ridership has plunged by more than 70%.)
As the two states started containing the virus and began reopening in stages, bus companies resumed limited service with hopes that demand would gradually rise. But that rebound has not happened.
In the Midwest, Indian Trails, another long-running, family-owned company, suspended all of its service in Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin in late March.
In early August, it resumed some of its routes after receiving a share of the emergency federal aid that Congress gave to the transportation departments in Michigan and Wisconsin. But other routes, including commuter service between Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan, remained suspended.
Coach USA, one of the biggest private bus companies in the country, said a survey of its customers found that more than two-thirds of them planned to resume commuting in July. But in early August, ridership on its lines that connect New York and New Jersey was still down about 90%, said Sean Hughes, a spokesman for the company.
On its Short Line and Rockland Coaches that serve suburban communities in New York state and New Jersey, Coach suspended several lines. On others, it cut the number of daily runs from as many as 20 to as few as three.
All of these cutbacks have left some commuters, like Ramie Faris, in the lurch.
Faris, 31, and his wife bought a house in Bloomfield, New Jersey, a year ago because it was only a block from a DeCamp bus stop, he said. After working from home for three months at the outset of the pandemic, Faris resumed commuting this summer to his job as a commercial photographer in Manhattan.
The buses had been less than half-full, and passengers spread out and wore face masks, he said. Best of all, the ride into the city took just 20 minutes, less than half the time it took when traffic was heavy.
Then, Aug. 5, DeCamp surprised him and its other remaining riders by announcing on social media that it would cease operations indefinitely at the end of that week.
Since then, Faris has relied on his wife, who is 39 weeks pregnant, to drive him to a train station in neighboring Montclair to catch a New Jersey Transit train to Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. He has a longer walk to his office from there than from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
“It’s been a nightmare trying to figure out how I’m going to get to work,” Faris said.
He added that he did not understand why DeCamp had indicated that it might restore some service in September if more people returned to work after Labor Day.
“That makes no sense to me,” Faris said. “They’re only closing for three weeks?”
But DeCamp said he was uncertain when demand would justify starting back up. “There are just so many changing variables,” he said.
In the meantime, New Jersey Transit has agreed to accept DeCamp tickets on some of its buses and trains, and Coach USA has agreed to do the same on one of its nearby routes.
The Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents more than 100 DeCamp employees, criticized the shutdown that put them out of work and blamed the federal government for not providing aid to the industry.
The union has joined with a long list of private carriers in pressing for passage of a federal bill that would provide emergency aid for transportation services, including $10 billion for motor coach operators. That legislation is bogged down in negotiations between Republicans and Democrats over additional economic stimulus.
The industry, which includes charter companies and intercity bus operators like Greyhound, was not included in a massive federal relief act in March. That law provided $25 billion in aid to transit systems like New Jersey Transit and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“We tried,” said John A. Costa, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union. “We went on a lobby to try to get money for them.” But now, he said, “Congress is going on vacation, so it won’t happen any time soon.”
About 2,000 of the union’s members are out of work, without health benefits and collecting unemployment, Costa said.
Many of the private commuter services also operate charters that take groups to casinos, sightseeing and on school trips. But that business has been nearly nonexistent for a few months.
Coach USA permanently shut down three of its charter operations, two in Pennsylvania and one in Ohio, Hughes said. Those moves put more than 400 people out of work, he said. Coach has furloughed 2,800 of about 5,000 employees, and the rest have taken a 40% cut in pay since March, he added.
“Coronavirus couldn’t have come at a worse time,” Hughes said, “right at the beginning of charter season, and it looks like it will continue through the year, which will devastate the entire motor coach industry.”
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