The basics:

• Kolluri outlines NJ Transit priorities at NAIOP NJ policy forum
• Focus on reliability, fiscal discipline, modernization
• New executive order requires overhaul plan within 45 days
• LAND initiative could generate up to $70M annually, boost TOD

Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed an executive order this week designed to improve service for NJ Transit riders. It follows recent remarks from the agency’s leader previewing administration priorities.

NJ Transit President and CEO and New Jersey Turnpike Authority Executive Director Kris Kolluri delivered remarks during the March 19 NAIOP NJ Annual Public Policy Symposium. During the event, he outlined three priorities also reflected in Executive Order 16. All point toward improving service for residents: reliability, financial discipline and modernization.

The program offered insights from Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration, including New Jersey Chief Operating Officer Kellie Doucette and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Deputy Commissioner Joseph Seebode.

Mode agnostic mindset

EO 16 tasks NJ transit offices with delivering a comprehensive plan to make service cleaner, safer, more reliable and more accessible. The plan is due within 45 days. The administration says it expects to introduce improvements by late June.

“What the governor understands is that public transit – or mass transit – at large is not meant to be a profit,” Kolluri told the room of real estate professionals. “It is meant to be the core way in which we maintain our promise and our quality of life. That is the promise of New Jersey.”

That thinking is also represented in Kolluri’s dual roles with the administration. He said the appointments reflect Sherrill’s thinking about being more “mode agnostic.”

No matter if a resident wants to take a train or arrive by auto, “Our job in government is to make sure we provide a mode-agnostic solution that gets a resident from point A to point B.” If you bring these two agencies together, “you now have the makings of how we evolve our thinking for the long-term,” Kolluri said.

Fiscal responsibility

He noted Sherrill’s 2027 Fiscal Year budget proposal funds NJ Transit “exactly dollar for dollar” what it asked for. Kolluri said he requested an 11% increase; and that’s what the plan carves out. That commitment, amid an almost $1 billion structural deficit, reveals Sherrill’s long-term thinking and planning.

“You don’t finance it, you keep running into a same, muddled experience that our riders have had for 45 years,” he said.

To generate funding moving forward, Kolluri referenced NJ Transit’s LAND plan. The initiative seeks to monetize the agency’s 8,000 acres of land. It leans into projects such as transit-oriented development, solar and battery storage, industrial hubs and “even doing things like wetland banking,” in partnership with the private sector, Kolluri said.

Working “with people in this room” he said NJ Transit has the potential to raise almost $60 million to $70 million a year for the next 30 years.

For perspective, Kolluri said the figure is about the equivalent of exacting a 6% fare increase every year.

On top of that, he said the Leveraging Assets for Non-farebox Dollars Plan will bring about a $1.4 billion net benefit to municipalities and the state over that period, Kolluri added.

Rolling out new infrastructure

Kolluri credited Gov. Phil Murphy for getting NJ Transit started on its journey into modernity. And Sherrill for her initiative, offering two examples.

He noted most of the state’s rolling stock, or rail cars, are from the 1970s and 1980s. Updating that equipment is high priority. “So, in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to roll out our actual physical infrastructure improvement on rolling stock,” Kolluri said.

He cited the Portal North Bridge’s recent reopening as a companion piece to modernizing the system. “I think the composite picture I want to paint for you is an administration that is pragmatic to the core, but driven by sort of metrics that sort of move the needle in a way that never has been measured.”

All aboard!

The first ceremonial train crossed the new Portal North Bridge in March 2026. Come along for the ride.

While the path forward will likely come with challenges, Kolluri closed on an optimistic note.

“I think the reason New Jersey, perhaps the United States in general, has been so successful … is we have never been afraid to make difficult decisions in the context of innovation,” he said. “We have always pushed the threshold of next level thinking and building big things to solve very complex problems.”

Now, “You have a governor for the first time willing to say, ‘Go and push the envelope.'”

Kolluri said that offers an “extraordinary amount of leeway and opportunity to think about complex problems that have sort of really burdened businesses and residents for many, many years.”

Urging collaboration, he posited using the moment as a chance to “think about problems and solve them in a very different way. … to make sure we have a collective to it, not just one or two.”