"If we want to take cars off our highways, we must make mass transit a viable option, not a last resort," Lettiere explains. "Transit villages will allow people to live, shop and reach work without a car."

The newly named communities are Bloomfield, Bound Brook, Cranford, Belmar, Collingswood and Matawan. The original seven communities, designated during the administration of former Gov. Christie Whitman were Morristown, Pleasantville, Rahway, Rutherford, Riverside, South Amboy and South Orange. To that, the administration of Gov. James McGreevey had added Metuchen.

Initial state aid for each community comes in the form of a $200,000 grant to be used for streetscaping, access and station improvements and the like. Longer term aid comes in the form of expedited permitting and additional grants.

The process is at various stages in the designated communities. In Bound Brook, a small Somerset County community of 10,000 devastated by Hurricane Floyd four years ago, for example, a proposal is already on the table to turn part of the existing commuter parking lot into three levels of covered parking and 130 residential units. The project is in a 200-acre area designated for redevelopment.

Morristown has perhaps the most ambitious plan. There, a proposal is working its way through the approval process that create well over 200 rental apartments, a substantial retail component and 700 parking spaces with an estimated price tag of $50 million.