ATLANTIC CITY The motorcoach industry is getting lots of support in its fight against higher fees and more restricted highway access in Atlantic City.

A second hearing last month on changes proposed by the South Jersey Transportation Authority drew a large number of coach operators, along with representatives from the Greater New Jersey Motorcoach, United Motorcoach and American Bus associations, tourism and hospitality groups, and a spokesperson for Atlantic City casinos.

The hearing, like one in August, was conducted to elicit comments from the bus and casino industries on a proposed rulemaking by the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which regulates bus traffic in and around Atlantic City.

Under the proposed rules change, all bus traffic would be redirected from Routes 30 and 40 to the Atlantic City Expressway, which would result in additional tolls and mileage costs to operators.

The rule also would change the medallion system that operators are required to participate in before they can bring coaches into Atlantic City.

The proposal would switch the medallion fee system from a flat charge to one based on the estimated or actual number of trips into the city, further increasing operators' costs.

At the hearing last month, Godfrey LeBron of Paradise Trailways in New York and vice chairman of the United Motorcoach Association; Clyde Hart, senior vice president of the American Bus Association; Tom JeBran of Trans-Bridge Lines in Pennsylvania and vice president of the Greater New Jersey Motorcoach Association; Ken Presley, vice president of UMA, and a casino spokesperson testified against the changes.

In his testimony, Presley noted that in recent years New Jersey has made significant changes in the way it deals with the charter bus industry by imposing franchise taxes, corporate registrations and corporate taxes on operators from other states.

The impact of these changes, said Presley, has been that many operators who routinely delivered tourists to Atlantic City in the past have abandoned the city.

He quoted an operator from North Carolina who said he typically ran five or six charters a year to Atlantic City, but doesnt do it anymore. "'When you do the math, it's simply not worth it. I have advised my sales staff, no more Atlantic City, no more New Jersey,'" Presley said the operator told him.

"While Atlantic City and the South Jersey Transportation Authority may not miss those 300-400 tourists, along with the retail sales and tax revenue they produced, but those dollars now appear on someone else's (income) sheet."

"At a time when bus and motorcoach tourism is increasing, Atlantic City is recording dramatic declines in bus and motorcoach visits, (down) approximately 40 percent in the last decade," said Presley.

In many instances, bus operators, group coordinators and tour directors have a threshold, or a minimum number of tourists on a bus, before they will send a coach on a trip.

"Keep in mind," said Presley, the operator wants to run these trips because it builds goodwill to make the run. But operators also must at least break even.

"For example, if an operator requires 30 passengers to break even, he or she likely will cancel the trip if only 28 seats are reserved. By increasing the cost through forced tolls and medallion increases, combined with burdensome taxes, you also increase the minimum number of tourist required for the operator to run the trip.

"While this may only require two or three additional tourists, it disproportionately increases the likelihood that NO tourists will arrive in Atlantic City from that operator," Presley explained.

"While Atlantic City once enjoyed a regional lock on gaming, this condition no longer exists," he added.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority has asked the South Jersey Transportation Authority to hold off on making the changes. The convention and visitors authority says the proposed rules would be disastrous for the city's chief industry: tourism.

The convention and visitors authority presented a written recommendation to the transportation authority, asking it to wait until a regional master transportation plan already initiated by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority - and in which the SJTA is taking part - is completed next year.

"Why make these changes, these sweeping changes, without getting the results of this study?" said visitors authority Vice President of Marketing Maureen Siman.

She said that keeping tour buses off the White and Black Horse pikes would further clog the congested expressway on weekends, frustrate customers who have to wait in traffic and pose pedestrian safety issues at the base of the expressway.

The group also feels the proposal would create a disadvantage for casinos outside the city's midtown district, where the expressway ends. Moreover, the proposal would hike the cost of doing business in Atlantic City at a time when Pennsylvania slot parlors are making it cheap for bus companies, according to Siman.