Getting to Meadowlands Worse Than the Jets Game Itself

The scene at the Meadowlands after the Jets game last night

You would think NJ Transit would learn their lesson after that nightmarish mob scene which ensued after a U2 concert at the Meadowlands almost exactly one year ago. Could it be they just don't care that thousands of people have to grind together like livestock being herded toward the train platform, where there are too few trains to accommodate the crowd? Judging by the hellish accounts from commuters trying to get to and away from last night's Jets game, they just can't handle it.

New Jersey Transit blames the overcrowding on the weather, and admits they struggled to accommodate 12,200 passengers, almost twice what it expected. "That is a record for us at a football game," New Jersey Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett-Hackett tells Bloomberg News. "The storm that came through the area caused some delays." According to Bloomberg, getting there from Secaucus was half the fun: "Fans in Jets jerseys drinking beer stood four or five deep at the platform waiting. It got even more crowded, and trains would come and go without picking up everyone waiting. 'I have been standing here for 20 minutes,' Joseph Villorno, 50, of Manhattan said. 'I literally could not get on that last train.' "

And getting back after the game was just as bad, if not worse, as thousands of fans bottlnecked trying to get to the platform to take the trains back to Secaucus. At least commuter Mike Lawson Word saw his wish come true to make up for the ordeal; before the game he wrote on Twitter, "Words cannot describe my frustration with the NJ Transit right now. So heated!!! Jets better lose."

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By John Del Signore in News on September 14, 2010 2:00 PM

Comments [rss]

glennQNYC

The $50 they rob people to park is probably why so many tried the train.

BrianW

Not robbery. Just means that the $50 single-game parking permit was well priced.

njchris44

Ignorance! You can't compare a baseball stadium to a football stadium in terms of logistics! Citifield has a max capacity of 45,000. Meadowlands Stadium has a capacity that exceeds 82,000--even more for concerts. That's nearly TWICE AS MANY PEOPLE, all leaving at the exact same time. If each train can carry 800 people or so (a generous estimate), that means a crowd of 12,000 would need 15 trains to depart before everyone was hauled out. Trains take time to load, and they can't all depart at once. So, these people who believe that should be able to waltz out of the stadium and be whisked away are living in the same fantasy world that had the Jets winning the super bowl this year.

Brian

Waiting to board the train after the game was a potentially dangerous situation. With crowds pushing towards the train platform, and people hopping the waist-high fence with inadequate staffing, a stampede situation was truly possible. And there was no organized line to get to the platform, just a large mass of people coming from different directions.

There is truly a need for a real, organized entranceway to that station.

And of course, while waiting, there was no explanation for the long waits and slow-moving trains.

JenChungsBaby

The way the Jests played the fans should have been filing out of the stadium beginning at halftime. Maybe they wanted to stick around and watch that guy run out of bounds for 9 yards on 4th-and-10 to end the game.

NYDirk

Next week, the trains will be delayed because of leaves on the tracks.

The week after, snow.

zincink

HAHAHA I laughed so hard at this.. I have a secret hatred for NJ Transit. I am surprised they don't have tolls at each train stop

Kojak

Suckers. Wouldn't it be a good idea to put some money aside from the $1.6 Billion is cost to build the stadium to upgrade public transport in and around the area?

That would help. The Stadium with the best transit connections is probably CitiField & the Tennis Center. Buses/LIRR/Dedicated 7 Express Trains work very well.

Think2wice

Maybe all those years ago the Jets owners (and Bloomberg) shouldn't have turned their noses up at a Jets/Olympic stadium built in that same area. The fans would be happy, we'd probably have the Olympics, and the Jets would be back on New York soil.

EastRiver

we'd probably have the Olympics

New York was never going to get the Olympics and neither was Chicago. The IOC hates the USOC. Just in case their was any confusion with the 2012 results they made sure we got the message with the 2016 vote. No US city is even wasting their time and money for 2020.

one00

So, umm, yeah. The train line to the stadium did not exist before the stadium upgrade. So, yes, I guess they did upgrade the public transportation there.

theevilone

In turn, NJT seems to have stopped running buses there, so there's really no improvement. They also didn't open up all of the train cars and didn't have enough ticket collectors to handle the crowds. Poor planning.

BrianW

CoachUSA now runs the 351 buses to PABT. And from what I saw, they DID open all cars. They just opened them gradually for purposes of efficiently filling the train. They first only opened the car or cars at the back of the train (north end of the platform at the Meadowlands Sports Complex station) and then as those cars filled up they then opened cars closer to the south end of the platform. They repeated the process until the entire train was full.

ianmac47

Yes, the station is new to the stadium, but that didn't prevent NJ Transit from turning into a giant boondoggle, like not building a station with a connection to the Bergen/Main Line, or sending the line out of its way on a longer track so they could overpay for a parcel of contaminated land from Honeywell ... http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2009/02/sports_authority_paid_62m_for.html

theevilone

1 hr and 45 minutes to get there, 2 1/2 hrs to get back. NJT has no idea what it is doing. Bring back the buses!

BrianW

Bring back the buses? The buses have been back for well over a year! IIRC they were only gone for a few weeks.

nicemarmot

You're right - I just went back to the stadium site to post the link and they've corrected it to say Jets and Giants.

schadenfreudian mensch

And yet people still rather pay for the overpriced tickets and deal with this f'uped trains. I have no sympathies for the stupid.

boogpowell

Its stupid to sit home and never go anywhere bc you think everything is too overpriced and then complain about it on the internet.

nicemarmot

They still have the 351 bus out of the Port Authority for Giants games, but not for the Jets. Which I don't quite get, but then I don't quite get the crazy train thing either.