New Burlington County shuttle bus will connect Philly suburbs with regional transportation options
SJ Connects is slated to launch a free shuttle bus in Burlington County in September. It will concentrate on places close to Philadelphia and Camden such as Moorestown but connect to a larger system.
A new free shuttle bus in Burlington County will be concentrated in a small slice of the county in some of the places closest to Philadelphia and Camden, according to a draft brochure for the service.
But it’ll also serve as a transfer point for other residents in the area.
SJ Connects, a free shuttle bus service run by the South Jersey Transportation Authority (SJTA), was granted $5 million under former Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration for an 18- to 24-month trial run to improve transit in the region. All of the service’s routes already began running except for Burlington County’s bus, which is expected to start service in September despite being included in a June 1 launch announcement.
The SJTA has not yet posted the details of the Burlington County route but The Inquirer obtained its draft brochure through a public records request. The document shows that the planned 11-stop route connects Burlington County’s Palmyra, Moorestown, Cinnaminson, Mount Laurel, and Maple Shade with the Pennsauken Transit Center in Camden County.
» READ MORE: Burlington County was left out of a new free shuttle bus launch in South Jersey. Here’s when and why that’ll change.
While it will most directly service the residents who live along the route, the planned route will also connect with existing transportation centers in the area to serve as a transfer point for riders.
Locally, the bus is slated to stop at Cooper University Health Care‘s Moorestown campus, Moorestown Library and Town Hall, Cinnaminson Shop Rite, Fox Meadow Apartments, and the Mount Laurel Walmart Supercenter.
Stops at the Moorestown Mall and Pennsauken Transit Center will connect riders to NJ Transit buses that go to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, Trenton, Camden County municipalities such as Cherry Hill, Haddonfield and Gloucester City, and other Burlington County locations such as Mount Holly and Willingboro. It will also link riders with the RiverLine and Atlantic City Rail.
Dominic D’Amico, director of transportation services at the SJTA, said the agency designed the routes to connect with NJ Transit’s existing infrastructure and the region’s “eds and meds.”
Some parts of Burlington County that are excluded from SJ Connects — such as Pemberton and Mount Holly — have access to a separate, existing system called the BurLINK shuttle, which is administered by the county and run by a private company.
The new SJ Connects route is not slated to directly connect with BurLINK. But riders can transfer between the two services using the River Line, for example.
Assembly member Andrea Katz, a Burlington County Democrat, said in an interview earlier this month that she hopes SJ Connects will expand further into her district in the future. The long-term viability for the program will likely depend on whether its advocates can convince Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill and legislative leaders that it’s worth funding in future state budgets.
“We have very little down here in Burlington County, and in South Jersey as a whole, but folks still have those issues that they need a ride to the hospital, they need a ride to a grocery store,” Katz said. “They need to get access to these things, and we’re finally starting to see this expansion into South Jersey.”
