Burlington County was left out of a new free shuttle bus launch in South Jersey. Here’s when and why that’ll change.

Burlington County was left behind when a new free shuttle bus for South Jersey launched in June. That is going to change in September.

The South Jersey Transportation Authority (SJTA) announced June 1 that a free shuttle bus program called South Jersey Connects was launching that day with routes in all seven southern counties: Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Salem — and Burlington.

But as the other routes launched, the promised Burlington County route never began. On the authority’s website, it is still marked as “coming soon.”

That is because until recently, the transportation authority was not actually authorized to operate in Burlington County. The county considered operating its own route for the program but ultimately agreed to have the authority run it instead.

But that required legislation.

South Jersey lawmakers had proposed bringing Burlington County into the authority back in the 2022-23 legislative session, but it was not until the South Jersey Connects program was about to launch this year that legislators had the wherewithal to actually hit the gas pedal in Trenton.

“We worked in partnership with our county commissioner, then the administration of Burlington County, and just realized we just couldn’t pull that off,” Sen. Troy Singleton, a Burlington County Democrat, said in an interview. “And speaking with the administration, they were like, look, we feel more comfortable running this through the SJTA, and we already had this legislative vehicle, so that’s when it took on a greater sense of urgency.”

The bill to bring Burlington County into the SJTA passed the Assembly in mid-May and was approved by the Senate just a few days before the June 1 announcement. But Gov. Mikie Sherrill did not sign it into law until the night of the budget deadline — a month after the program had been announced.

“The timing just didn’t work out,” Singleton said.

The Burlington route is expected to start in September, said Dominic D’Amico, director of transportation services at the SJTA, but a start date has not been announced.

The new shuttle’s path has been finalized but has not been shared publicly. D’Amico said in an interview that, like the other routes that launched June 1, it will connect with NJ Transit’s existing infrastructure and the region’s “eds and meds.”

Burlington County Commissioner Felicia Hopson said the new shuttle will enhance the NJ Transit River Line and help residents access jobs, appointments, stores, and schools.

“Stretching 820 square-miles, Burlington County is New Jersey’s largest county, making transportation essential but also challenging for residents without motor-vehicles,” she said in a statement.

The idea of South Jersey Connects emerged from the Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey’s advocacy after former Gov. Phil Murphy implemented the 2.5% Corporate Transit Fee on businesses to fund NJ Transit in 2024.

The project was granted $5 million for an 18-24 month pilot, and the future beyond that is uncertain. The South Jersey chamber unsuccessfully requested more money for the effort in this year’s budget, and proponents of the project are hoping to show that it is worth the investment during next year’s budget negotiations.

The summer launch so far has been a little slow, which is to be expected, according to D’Amico.

The authority has seen about 600 one-way trips in the first month of the program, he said, a number he expects to go up as people learn about the routes and as school starts in the fall. He wants to see the service hit at least 5,000 one-way trips each month.

“It takes some time to spread the word, for the marketing campaign to reach the social media platforms, getting brochures delivered to each facility — all those types of things factor into what is a normal slow start,” he said.

“It could be worse, it could be better,” he said.

Sherrill said in a statement that Burlington County deserves to be part of the authority as “a vital part of the region.”

The reason Burlington County has not been included in SJTA is not because anyone was denying the county is part of South Jersey. Rather, the agency was set up to replace an entity that oversaw the Atlantic City Expressway, which does not go into Burlington, said David Zappariello, the authority’s director of communications.

Along with adding Burlington County to the authority’s coverage zone, the new law allows Sherrill to appoint another member to its board. Members of the board represent the region as a whole, not their home county, Zappariello said, and there is already a Burlington County resident sitting on the board.

Assembly member Alex Sauickie, an Ocean County Republican who also represents part of Burlington County, voted against the bipartisan legislation because it did not also add Ocean County to the authority.

“I just don’t like it when you’re picking winners and losers for political reasons,” he said.

Assembly member Andrea Katz, a Burlington County Democrat, said none of the South Jersey Connects routes will touch her district, where she has concerns about transit deserts. But she is hopeful about public transit expanding in the region and the county getting a seat at the transit table.

“Burlington County now being included means that we’re going to get to have that voice,” she said. “We’re going to get to not be the one stuck in the middle there. We’re going to start to get our own access to public transportation.”