For the next month, NJ Transit rail commuters bound for New York City will confront drastically fewer trains and, in many cases, trains that do not go where they usually do.
The partial closing of the Portal Bridge between the Newark and Secaucus stations will lead NJ Transit to cut its weekday service over the bridge nearly in half, to 178 trains from 332. And the Midtown Direct service that normally takes riders on several northern New Jersey lines directly into Penn Station in Manhattan will be halted, forcing those riders to get off in Hoboken and switch to buses, the PATH train or ferries.
Riders on the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line, which will still run into Penn Station but not as often, will find trains more crowded than usual, perhaps unpleasantly so.
With all that in mind, below are some other ways of getting to the city, with links to NJ Transit’s official, and detailed, backup guides. And here is a map of all bus service from New Jersey train stations to New York City.
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Northeast Corridor customers: NJ Transit runs buses to the Port Authority Bus Terminal from all over the state. You can also take a bus or train to Newark Penn Station and get on the PATH, which goes to both Midtown and Lower Manhattan.
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North Jersey Coast Line: In addition to NJ Transit buses and the PATH, the private Academy bus line serves both the Port Authority and Wall Street from many places in the southeast part of the state. There are also ferries to New York from South Amboy and Atlantic Highlands.
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Morristown, Gladstone, Montclair-Boonton and Raritan Valley Lines: Your trains will terminate in Hoboken. From there you can take the NJ Transit 126 bus to the Port Authority, the PATH train to Lower Manhattan or Midtown, or a ferry (transfers are free to the bus or PATH, or to ferries to Midtown). If Hoboken does not sound appealing, you can take a NJ Transit bus from close to home, or from a park-and-ride lot closer to the city. And in addition to NJ Transit buses, Lakeland Bus Lines serves the Port Authority from many places in Morris, Somerset, Union, Essex and Sussex Counties and also runs buses from Morris County to Wall Street.
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Main, Bergen County, Pascack Valley and Port Jervis Lines: For commuters in the northeast corner of the state or Rockland and Orange counties in New York, train service remains unchanged other than connecting times, NJ Transit said.
Andy Newman writes about New Yorkers facing difficult situations, including homelessness, poverty and mental illness. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.
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