New Jersey Sunday Travel: The Portal Cutover Timetable, Not the Regular One, Runs the Marathon and Jets Day
Sunday is one of the heaviest cross-Hudson travel days of the fall - the marathon, a Jets home game and the final day of early voting - and every NJ Transit trip into New York runs on the Portal Bridge cutover schedule, with one track between Newark and Secaucus.
New Jersey travelers heading into New York on Sunday should plan from the cutover timetable, not the regular one. The Portal Bridge cutover, now in its final weeks through mid-November, leaves a single track operating between Newark and Secaucus while crews move the last track onto the new Portal North Bridge, and the adjusted NJ Transit and Amtrak schedules built for that constraint are the ones in force on Sunday, according to the agencies' published plan as reported and read by this desk.
Two features of the plan matter most on Sunday. Weekend Midtown Direct trains continue to Penn Station New York rather than diverting to Hoboken - the Hoboken diversion is a weekday pattern - and the agencies have added weekend shuttle trips between Secaucus Junction and Penn Station, 34 in the published plan, to keep connections moving across the single-track section.
The day stacks three crowds onto that reduced railroad: marathon runners and spectators crossing for the race (New Jersey's official start bus runs from MetLife Stadium, covered on this site), fans heading to the Jets' 1 p.m. home game at MetLife Stadium, and voters moving around the state for the final day of early voting. Regular NJ Transit schedules are not expected to resume until Sunday, November 15, and then only subject to safety testing - so the advice that has held all month holds on Sunday too: check the NJ Transit alerts for your specific train before you leave.
