Middlesex county ride m7
brunswick square mall to south amboy
August 21, 2025
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Middlesex County RIDE is the bus system of Middlesex County, New Jersey, in central Jersey. Now, if you know New Jersey, your first question may be: "wait, I thought NJT served New Jersey!" Well, while NJT does serve the vast majority of New Jersey, there are a few county- or municipality-run bus systems. Most of these either serve as small shuttles around individual towns (like the Hoboken Hop in Hoboken) or as systems in areas where NJT does not provide much, if any, service (examples include Hunterdon County LINK, Warren County Transportation, and BurLink, among others). Middlesex County RIDE does not fit into either of those categories: the routes do not run solely within towns, and NJT does serve Middlesex County somewhat well. Pre-COVID, Middlesex County RIDE (then called Middlesex County Area Transit) had 7 routes serving many areas of the county, with three places where routes fanned out from. New Brunswick had the M1 to Jamesburg and the "BrunsQuick" Shuttles around New Brunswick (routes M4 and M5); Jamesburg had the aforementioned M1, the M2 to the Brunswick Square Mall, and the M6 to Princeton Junction; and the Brunswick Square Mall had the aforementioned M2, the M3 to Old Bridge, and this route, the M7 to South Amboy. Much of the system was shut down during COVID, and no routes ran for a while. Post-COVID, the M2 through M6 were "temporarily" suspended, while the M1 and M7 were brought back on a severly reduced schedule. When the system rebranded to Middlesex County RIDE in summer 2024, these cuts were made permanent, and now only two fixed routes operate. This is in addition to countywide paratransit/dial-a-ride service and a microtransit in New Brunswick. The M7 is somewhat of an odd route, running from South Amboy to the Winding Wood Apartments in Sayreville all day, with midday trips continuing to the Brunswick Square Mall. Surprisingly, despite running near many NJT routes, no route duplicates any part of the ride (though one could do the full Brunswick Square-South Amboy run on NJT buses, in the same about of time, though requiring a transfer). So, with that history out of the way, let's go ride the M7!
I boarded the bus at the Brunswick Square Mall, and we went through the mall's parking lot and exit road, turning right onto Summerhill Rd. We turned right onto Arthur St, beginning our first deviation. We passed through a huge parking lot for a bunch of different interconnected strip malls, serving a Stop & Shop (where someone boarded), a self storage place, an Aldi's, and a Burlington. We exited the mall onto Racetrack Road, then turned left onto the worst stroad of all time, Route 18.
The bus at the Brunswick Square Mall.
Deviating through the strip malls.
We quickly turned right onto Arthur St, finishing our deviation and leaving Route 18 behind. We continued through a suburban (though somewhat dense) area, and made a dogleg turn via Old Bridge Tpk onto Kamm Av, entering the borough of South River, known for being home to many Belarusian immigrants. We then turned right onto Whitehead Av, where we passed a Belarusian Orthodox church!
Suburban houses in South River.
The Belarusian Orthodox church!
Soon after, we started our second deviation, turning left on Wojie Way, then right to serve Willett Manor and South River Landing, both apartment complexes. The only other passenger so far, who had got on at the Brunswick Square Mall, got off here. We returned to Whitehead Av and continued down it. Soon, we re-entered East Brunswick, prompting Whitehead Av to become River Rd. We then turned left on Bordentown Av, crossing the South River and entering Sayreville.
The deviation to Willett Manor and South River Landing.
Crossing the South River.
We continued up Bordentown Av, parallelling the old Camden & Amboy railroad, now the CSAO Amboy Secondary. We passed the Winding Woods Apartments, where rush hour trips end, and entered a weirdly rural and industrial area. We crossed the Gillespie Running Track at grade, then went under the Amboy Secondary, and continued through more industrial areas, which became more suburban after we crossed Cheesequake Rd.
Crossing the Gillespie Running Track.
One of many industrial areas.
We turned right on Ernston Rd, passed the Gateway Shopping Center and went under Route 9, and soon began a massive deviation by turning onto Westminster Blvd. After passing some housing developments, we turned right on Downing St, left on Meleta Way, and left into the northbound Old Bridge Park & Ride. After looping around, we crossed over Route 9, served the southbound side of the park & ride, then turned right to deviate into Walmart.
Housing developments along Westminster Blvd.
The surprisingly nice-looking northbound side of the Old Bridge Park & Ride.
After picking up a few people at Walmart, we passed next to (but didn't deviate to) a Home Depot, then served the Gateway Shopping Center (again, just stopping in the parking lot, no deviation). We turned right on Ernston Rd, finally finishing this mega-deviation. We then turned right onto an entrance ramp, and started a short "express" section up Route 9, another classic Jersey stroad, and exited at Bordentown Av.
WAL*MART
Retracing our steps on Ernston Rd.
We passed the Jon Bon Jovi Service Area on the Garden State Pkwy (where Academy Bus has a park-and-ride, no deviation though!) and entered South Amboy. Things got a but less suburban as we neared downtown South Amboy, We turned right on Broadway, deviated to the South Amboy Housing Authority, and then we were supposed to do a huge looping deviation to "Shoregate/YMCA/McCarthy Towers", but we instead skipped this and headed into downtown, where I got off.
Slightly less suburban!
A deviation to the South Amboy Housing Authority, where most of the people from Walmart got off the bus.
Technically the route ends one block north of here, but the driver asked where I was going and I had said the train station!
Route: Middlesex County RIDE M7 (Brunswick Square Mall to South Amboy)
Ridership: 712 riders in January 2025, making it the lesser-used of the two RIDE routes, and the 46th-least-used bus in the New York metro area. My trip had four total riders including me: one went from the Stop & Shop in East Brunswick to Willett Manor, and two went from Walmart to South Amboy.
Pros: It provides service on an unserved-by-NJT corridor, and it offers a quick way between downtown South Amboy and the two nearby bus park & rides (Old Bridge and Jon Bon Jovi). It's also cheaper than any NJT alternative (if one exists), at only $1. (This is also apparently a "suggested" fare, which is...interesting to say the least).
Cons: The schedule is horrible, running only 8 trips per day, with most short-turning at the Winding Woods Apartments. In addition, the frequencies vary from hourly to every three hours, which is never good. The schedule is also really hard to access -- from the main RIDE page, it takes five clicks to access the schedule, and it's really unintuitive: you have to go to the route map (hosted on ArcGIS) and click on a stop to see the link to download the schedule. The deviations are seemingly selected at random: why do Willett Manor and South River Landing get deviations but Winding Woods does not? Why does the bus pull up to the front door of Walmart but just pass by all the other stores? Why does the bus deviate to the Old Bridge Park & Ride but not Jon Bon Jovi? The GTFS is also full of glitches, showing the wrong routing twice (though the schedule is up to date). Lastly, my bus also ran quite late, but then we made up all this time by skipping the Shoregate/YMCA/McCarthy deviation.
Nearby and Noteworthy: South Amboy is a somewhat interesting town, and the Belarusian exclave in South River could be interesting (I did not explore it), but the route mainly serves boring suburbia.
Final Verdict: 2/10
Refer to the cons section for my main complaints with this route, but there's another reason it's getting a 2/10: RIDE seemingly picked the routes that stayed after COVID at random. I don't have access to pre-COVID ridership figures, so there is a chance that this and the M1 were the highest ridership, but why keep this, a route pretty closely duplicated by NJT, and remove many of the routes that provided pretty vital transit links and that have either no or a very limited duplication by NJT. The route's section in South River is important, as that is a transit desert, and clearly the section in South Amboy is important: that's where most of the ridership comes from, but I feel like this route does not serve either area very well. My idea is to cut the route, have the city of South Amboy itself run the South Amboy section as a shuttle, and then expand NJT service in South River. Use the one bus used on this route to revive the M2, and maybe even the M6 as well! You could even extend the M2 into South River so that the only section that loses service is the industrial areas along Bordentown Av. This way, a new corridor (Jamesburg-Brusnwick Square) with lots of somewhat dense towns is served by transit, and South Amboy-Brunswick Square passengers can just take NJT (with one easy transfer.)
Also, as a sidenote, RIDE: your county has many rural areas, why would you put microtransit in NEW BRUNSWICK of all places?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?! The ONE main urban area in your county is not where you put microtransit!
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