NJTransit

Football Fans Flock to New Meadowlands Rail Link

While fans of the Dallas Cowboys have no choice but to sit in gridlock on their way to and from their team's new stadium (and to pay dearly for game-time parking), area Giants and Jets faithful can now travel to home games by train.

By Brad Aaron

12:46 PM EDT on September 16, 2009

Meadowlands Rail event in July. Photo: EGS Blog

While fans of the Dallas Cowboys have no choice but to sit in gridlock on their way to and from their team’s new stadium (and to pay dearly for game-time parking), area Giants and Jets faithful can now travel to home games by train.

The New Jersey Transit Meadowlands Rail Line opened for business over the summer, and made its first NFL regular season run last weekend. A reader sends this account:

The train I was on for the Giants game Sunday was 100 percent full (wouldn’t be surprised if people were left on the platform, except the train was so full I couldn’t see out the window to check). Came on time, plenty of trains at the end of the game, etc. Bought my ticket at a Metro North station and they had someone manually checking tickets at Secaucus (since Secaucus usually uses electronic NY Transit tickets). Ironically, my friend who had the tickets drove and hit so much traffic that we missed kickoff.

The Giants, having topped the Redskins, travel to Dallas this week, and will host the Cowboys in December. Fresh from the impressive debut of rookie QB Mark Sanchez in Houston, the Jets face the Patriots — now 1-0 thanks to the hopelessly luckless Bills — in their home opener Sunday afternoon.

Brad Aaron

Brad Aaron began writing for Streetsblog in 2007, after years as a reporter, editor, and publisher in the alternative weekly business. Brad adopted New York's dysfunctional traffic justice system as his primary beat for Streetsblog. He lives in Manhattan.

NJTransit | Rail

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