DeCamp Bus Lines In NJ Suspends Service, Blames COVID Struggles – Montclair, NJ Patch

MONTCLAIR, NJ — DeCamp Bus Lines will stop serving customers indefinitely beginning Friday due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company said.

The Montclair-based company broke the news to riders Wednesday with a short statement on its website and Twitter. It read:

“Due to the sustained effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, DeCamp Bus Lines will be suspending all service, effective midnight August 7, 2020.”

Many commuters in the Essex County area use the bus line to get in and out of New York City. According to its website, the company makes 200 trips per day between points in northern New Jersey and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

Several Twitter users reported the suspension will have big impacts on their daily lives.

“I’m very sorry to hear this,” a disappointed rider wrote. “My husband and I just moved to Caldwell and picked our house based on the DeCamp bus route.”

“Very sad news to see,” another person commented. “Most importantly, sincere thanks and condolences to the DeCamp team of drivers, dispatchers, mechanics, etc. that helped get many of us in/out of NYC for so long.”

It wasn’t immediately clear when DeCamp plans to resume service.

A DeCamp spokesperson told NBC New York the suspension will last until at least September. The company is facing a steep ridership loss in the pandemic and can’t keep up with costs, including salaries and insurance, the spokesperson said.

The company was one of many in New Jersey that received funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which is meant to help businesses keep workers on their payrolls during the COVID-19 crisis.

However, DeCamp has also said that it’s among other motorcoach, tour and travel businesses being “shut out” of federal stimulus packages during the COVID-19 shutdown.

DeCamp previously suspended service on March 24, then restarted with limited service on June 8. Passengers were required to wear face masks and vehicle capacity was limited to 26 passengers.

The company had hoped revenues would pick up as the pandemic wore on, but that boost “never materialized,” spokespeople told Patch.

DeCamp stated:

“When the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns were put into effect by the state of New Jersey and the City of New York, we did everything operationally and financially to avoid suspending service, even in the face of a 97 percent loss in ridership. Unfortunately, we were forced to suspend service on March 24. We resumed limited service beginning on June 8, anticipating ridership returning and increasing as the state of New Jersey and the City of New York began to reopen. Unfortunately, the return of ridership never materialized and without any relief from the federal or state government, we simply cannot sustain operations.”

DeCamp continued:

“While the CARES Act directed $1.4 billion in FTA funding to New Jersey, that amount has been allocated only to NJ Transit, leaving private carriers such as DeCamp without a similar lifeline. Private carriers account for an estimated 35 percent of the scheduled bus service in the state, based on passenger miles, and our collective operations actually help to generate FTA funding for the state of New Jersey. So it is disappointing that we cannot access relief funds that would enable us to continue to serve our passengers and to provide jobs for our employees.”

The company added:

“DeCamp has exhausted all the financial resources it had available, including stretching the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds from the expected eight weeks into 17 weeks. Without access to the federal CARES Act funding or the passage of the Coronavirus Economic Relief for Transportation Services Act (CERTS), we had no choice except to suspend service again to conserve resources until passenger volumes return to a sustainable level.”

NJ Transit has no plans to absorb DeCamp’s routes, a spokesperson told Bloomberg news.

DeCamp, a family-owned business, has been operating since 1870. According to the company’s website, it began as a single daily trip between Roseland and Newark on a horse-drawn stagecoach.

Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com

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