Two buses serve the complex. The Pureland East-West Community Shuttle is a collaboration between Gloucester County, the Pascale Sykes Foundation, the South Jersey Transportation Authority, United Way of Gloucester County, Heart of Gloucester County, NJ Transit, and Cross County Connection Transportation Management. It runs between the complex and the Avandale Park & Ride and the Pureland complex.
Bus 402 is the only NJ Transit route serving the complex. It has connections to Camden and Philadelphia.
Joe Unwin commutes to his job at Uptown Bakery, a J&J Snack Foods division that does the baking for Wawa, entirely by bus. This is to allow his wife to use the vehicle for her job in home care.
From his home in Philly, he takes SEPTA bus 47 into Center City and commutes the rest of the way by NJ Transit. The entire commute, he said, is almost door to door.
“It’s convenient for me at times,” Unwin said of his two-hour commute. “For the price of a gallon of gas, with the tolls, car insurance, and car maintenance work; it’s reliable to take the bus.”
But there are downsides, like when it snows or when buses run behind schedule. Unwin also says there are not enough buses on the weekend.
“I think we should have a couple of extra buses running out here,” he said. “I don’t know what the other facilities out here do or if they work on the weekends…but we’re open 24 hours a day.”
NJ Transit recently launched its “New Bus BCG” initiative, a project that aims to redesign the bus network in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties. The agency notes that the network has not been changed in decades and that ridership has declined in recent years, a sign that the current network is not meeting the current needs of the community.
In a statement, the agency said it recognizes that Pureland is a major employment location for many people throughout the region and that “it will continue to collaborate with Logan Township as we look to explore how the community’s needs fit in with the overall bus network.”
For Logan Township officials at the end of the day, it’s about supporting the companies that are based there and providing opportunities, citing Cumberland and Salem counties.
“All these are the poorest counties in the state of New Jersey,” Minor said. “The poverty levels are through the roof and rising every single day.”
The mayor adds that his team has thought of ways to reach out to those in the communities to connect people to jobs.
“No one that I know of wants to have their children continue to be stuck in that vicious cycle of poverty,” he added.
