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New York|Boxcar, a Private Bus Company, Sees Opportunity in NJ Transit Strike
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/nyregion/boxcar-bus-nj-transit-strike.html
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With quirky social media videos, Boxcar, which was founded in 2017, is seeking to elevate its profile as commuters look for alternative ways to reach Manhattan.
May 16, 2025Updated 3:15 p.m. ET
On Thursday, Kevin O’Donovan, a business development associate for the private bus company Boxcar, posted an urgent direct-to-camera video to the company’s Instagram account.
“We are just nonstop adding buses,” Mr. O’Donovan said. “We are adding thousands of seats in response to a potential NJ Transit strike. And we’re taking that gamble. These buses are going to be running no matter what next week.”
It was one of several ways that Boxcar, which is based in Chatham, N.J., has used its online presence to take advantage of the disruption brought about by the New Jersey Transit rail strike, which began when unionized locomotive engineers walked off the job after midnight on Friday. The company offers customers more than a dozen pickup locations in suburban New Jersey to take luxury commuter buses into Midtown Manhattan. Trips are booked with an app.
Boxcar introduced a “Strike Clock” website that included a strike-countdown widget, a “strike odds” tracker and details about new bus lines that the company said would fill some of the gaps in the event of a walkout. Company employees have shared videos from what they call their “situation room,” including podcast-style interviews with Boxcar’s chief executive, Joe Colangelo. (Mr. Colangelo could not be reached for comment.)
In a recorded conversation with Mr. Colangelo that was posted on Instagram earlier this week, Mr. O’Donovan said that Boxcar would run twice as many buses on Friday as on a typical weekday, adding thousands of seats to serve commuters. And on Thursday, Boxcar went live on Instagram to discuss the strike and take questions from customers.
Mr. Colangelo founded Boxcar in 2017, when he rented out space in his driveway in Cranford, N.J., where commuters could park their cars before catching a train to Manhattan. Within a few years, Boxcar had expanded its business by inviting commuters to book luxury buses for rides into Manhattan as a kind of middle ground between public transit and expensive black cars. During the height of the pandemic, with many white-collar employees working form home, the company shifted to other services, such as grocery delivery. According to its website, Boxcar also offers services ranging from knife sharpening to car detailing.
