Weekend Festivals Spark High Ridership

The weekend of May 19–20, boosted by several music festivals, resulted in the second-highest train ridership totals in NJ Transit’s history, according to Mike Frassinelli, reporting in the Star-Ledger (May 23).  The Bamboozle music fest in Asbury Park and the Electric Daisy Carnival in East Rutherford, together with the Devils hockey playoff game on Saturday, allowed NJT to rack up 216,761 trips, second only to the 218,478 trips recorded the weekend before Christmas 2011.  A high-scoring weekend in the spring is unusual, officials said; most heavy-usage weekends occur in the Christmas shopping season or at major holidays.  Other traffic generators over the weekend included the Ringling Brothers circus in Trenton, Yankees games in the Bronx, and a religious rally at Citi Field in Queens.  The weekend’s traffic was a whopping 38% increase over the corresponding weekend last year.