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February 21, 2025|Passenger

Reports: NJT Aims to Advance GCL, Reduces State’s General Fund Subsidy

Written by Carolina Worrell, Senior Editor
Rendering of GCL's Woodbury Station. (NJT)
NJ Transit (NJT) President Kris Kolluri on Feb. 19 told the audience at the Southern New Jersey Development Council that he intends to see pre-construction this year on the proposed 18-mile-long Glassboro-Camden Line (GCL), according to multiple news reports.

Plans to break ground on the anticipated $1.8 billion project, which Kolluri estimates is at the 30% design stage mark, could still be years away and a website for the project currently estimates service to start in 2028, according to a CBS News report.

According to a Cherry Hill Courier-Post report, the GCL light rail system, which would follow existing railroad infrastructure, but with “significant upgrades,” is “controversial in the communities through which it would pass,” with opponents citing noise, traffic, and property value impacts as top concerns.

Residents of Mantua Township, Woodbury Heights and Wenonah in Gloucester County and Brooklawn in Camden County have all voted against the project in recent years, according to the report. Pitman—which neighbors Glassboro—did not have a referendum; the town council passed a resolution against GCL, which was passed by one vote.

Glassboro residents, however, last year voted in support of the GCL. The City of Camden has not held a referendum on the topic, the Cherry Hill Courier-Post reported.

“For those of you who may oppose this … it isn’t that I don’t listen to your concerns, or I don’t care about your concerns. I’ve been through many battles…But in the end, great projects happen because it fits the vision of what the state needs, not because of what people don’t think is right,” said Kolluri who was brought into state government in December 2024 to take over NJT, where he’s also CEO, with 13 months until Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s term ends, according to the CBS News report.

Kolluri said Gov. Murphy “drafted him to ensure progress on major transportation projects in the last year of his second term as governor” and that he expects to “further progress on the train line before he’s gone,” according to the news reports.

“I intend to advance pre-construction on GCL this year, not five years from now,” he told the crowd, which gathered at the Courtyard By Marriott on the Rowan University campus in Glassboro.

In addition to the GCL project, Kolluri, who, prior to his current role, served as CEO of the Gateway Development Commission, which is building the $16.1 billion Hudson Tunnel Project, said Gov. Murphy also wants the redevelopment of the Walter Rand Transportation Center in Camden to be under way, according to the Cherry Hill Courier-Post report.

“Walter Rand Transportation Center, the jewel of South Jersey not today, but it will be when we build it,” Kolluri said Wednesday. “I intend to advance construction of that thing this year. Not two years from now, not five years from now.”

According to the Cherry Hill Courier-Post report, Kolluri said the potential economic impact of the GCL is “commensurate with what the Hudson River railroad tunnels project does for North Jersey.” The line, which would terminate in Glassboro, with the other end at Walter Rand Transportation Center, is meant to give South Jersey residents a rail corridor “to rival ones serving Boston and Philadelphia.”

Additionally, the New Jersey Monitor reported that NJT will reduce its budget by 5% in line with Gov. Murphy’s request for agencies to reduce the state’s general fund subsidy amid a budget crunch, but Kolluri said the agency “will not slash services.”

According to the report, Kolluri said NJT has already met the reduction amount Gov. Murphy is seeking and the agency is currently operating on a $3 billion budget.

Gov. Murphy, the New Jersey Monitor reports, is set to deliver his final budget address next week. In October, he tasked department heads with identifying reductions equal to 5% of preliminary budget targets “in a bid to bridge broad deficits in the state’s current spending plan that are due to expand in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.”

According to the report, Kolluri said he “does not share fears held by some observers that revenue from a new 2.5% business surtax, called the corporate transit fee, would not reach NJT. Transportation advocates and some industry groups have worried lawmakers may redirect revenue from the tax, which is statutorily dedicated to NJT, to make up for shortfalls elsewhere in the state budget.”

The tax, the New Jersey Monitor reports, is expected to generate roughly $800 million for NJT until it expires at the start of 2029.

According to the report, New Jersey’s current budget calls for the state to spend $2.1 billion more than it takes in through taxes. “Absent broader shifts in the state budget, expiring one-shot revenue sources will raise that deficit to more than $3.8 billion in the next fiscal year.”