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The Manhattan-based Citizens Budget Commission recommends that PATH operations be subsidized by a sales or property tax in addition to Port Authority toll and rent revenues, and that NJ Transit take over operation of the trans-Hudson commuter railroad.

(Elizabeth Lara/The Jersey Journal)

A New York City financial watchdog group says the PATH system should be subsidized by tax dollars and operated by NJ Transit.

The Manhattan-based Citizens Budget Commission issued a report today asserting that the PATH, with a projected operating deficit of $387 million for 2014, is siphoning off too many Port Authority dollars that should be spent on other agency projects or operations.

"PATH is an extraordinary fiscal drain on the Port Authority, which undercuts the region's other transportation priorities," the budget group's president, Carol Kellerman, said in a statement.

The report said PATH was the only system in the country that does not receive taxpayer subsidies. Instead, PATH is subsidized by toll payers, airlines and their passengers, shipping companies and other Port Authority revenues sources.

But the system should receive tax-dollar subsidies, the CBC insists, because others in the region who don't pay Port Authority tolls or rents benefit from the reduced congestion and economic activity PATH provides.

The CBC proposed that the subsidy be raised through a property or sales tax in the five New Jersey counties with the most PATH users -- Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, and Union -- or a property tax in those counties plus the central Manhattan business district, where most PATH riders work. The Port Authority would continue subsidizing PATH with its own revenues, but at a lower rate.

It would make sense for NJ Transit to run the system, the CBC said, because its trains and buses already account for 60 percent of the commuting population. Adding PATH would make it 87 percent, according to the CBC, and it would be easier for NJ Transit to coordinate transit options and combinations.

The Port Authority said it was reviewing the report. NJ Transit declined to comment.

The PATH system carries an average of 244,000 riders on an average weekday, among 13 stops in Essex and Hudson counties and along Manhattan's west side, from the World Trade Center up to New York Penn Station.



The system's one-way fare is $2.50 per trip, but with monthly passes and other bulk discounts, the average fare per trip comes to $1.96, the report found. That's 23 percent of the average cost per trip of $8.45.

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