NYC Marathon 2026: New Jersey Runners Ride the Meadowlands Bus to the Start on Sunday
New Jersey's official route to the TCS New York City Marathon start on Sunday is a bus from MetLife Stadium's Parking Lot K to Fort Wadsworth, and the Port Authority is warning of lane restrictions at its bridges and tunnels through the marathon weekend.
For New Jersey runners, marathon Sunday starts in a parking lot in East Rutherford. The race's official New Jersey Bus departs from MetLife Stadium Parking Lot K, near the Quest Diagnostics Training Center, and runs directly to the start village at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, according to New York Road Runners' official transportation page, read by this desk. The estimated total travel time is about 60 minutes, runners are told to arrive 15 minutes before their scheduled departure, and this year NYRR assigns each runner's departure time based on registered or best pace - the time printed for the runner is the one that governs. Bib pickup at the expo closed at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
The race itself runs Sunday, November 1 through all five boroughs, starting at the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and finishing in Central Park, with road closures along the course through the day. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in an October 30 advisory reported this run, also lists planned lane restrictions at the George Washington Bridge, the Holland Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Bayonne Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing in its October 30 to November 5 window, and urges travelers to allow extra time.
One caution from that advisory is aimed at the workweek, not race morning: the Port Authority expects crowding at Hoboken and other PATH stations during weekday peak periods because NJ Transit customers are diverted there by the Portal Bridge cutover. New Jersey spectators heading into the city on Sunday should still check NJ Transit and 511NJ before leaving - Sunday rail runs on the Portal Cutover weekend schedule, covered elsewhere on this site.
