Marathon Sunday on the Crossings: The Verrazzano Is Closed for the Race, and Port Authority Lane Work Shadows the Bridges All Week

Sunday's race starts on the far side of New Jersey's crossings. The 2026 TCS New York City Marathon gets underway at 8 a.m. Eastern on Staten Island - professional wheelchairs first, the professional women at 8:35, the professional men at 9:05 and five waves of runners from 9:10 to 11:30 - on the 50th anniversary of the five-borough course, with a course change in the Bronx for the first time in 15 years and the finish in Central Park, according to the race guide read by this desk. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the race's first crossing, closed to traffic in both directions at 11 p.m. Saturday and stays closed while the field crosses.

For New Jersey drivers, the marathon is only half of the crossings story. The Port Authority's October 30 travel advisory warned motorists to expect significant disruption around the marathon route - and its separate advisory for the week of October 30 to November 5 identifies planned lane restrictions at the George Washington Bridge, the Holland Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Bayonne Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing. Those restrictions are construction work, not the race, and they land on the same crossings, in the same week, that carry New Jersey's marathon spectators, its final-day early voters and its Election Day traffic. The 511NJ feed adds one more item: a special event on the George Washington Bridge's north walkway runs until 4:45 a.m. Monday.

The weather, at least, is helping. The station's live feed calls for a dry Sunday with a high of 62.3 degrees and no precipitation expected - close to ideal for the runners, and one less problem for drivers picking their way around closed streets and coned-off lanes. The advice from every agency in this file is the same: if your Sunday crosses a bridge or a tunnel, check the crossing before you leave, and expect the trip to take longer than the map says.