NJ Transit MetLife World Cup plans for MetLife Stadium trips

NJ Transit MetLife World Cup planning is ramping up as fans look ahead to the July 2026 matches at MetLife Stadium.

This is reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply.

After FIFA confirmed dates and venues last week, the agency said calls surged from riders asking about ticketing, schedules, and how to reach the Meadowlands.

NJ Transit board member Shanti Narra said she also started hearing from friends and family shortly after the announcement, with many looking for details on transit service for the eight World Cup matches slated for MetLife Stadium.

The New Jersey–New York region was selected last year as one of FIFA’s host areas. The men’s 2026 World Cup will expand to 48 teams, with 60 matches played in the United States and 10 more hosted by Canada and Mexico, as reported by Railway Supply. At MetLife Stadium, five matches are scheduled between June 13 and June 27, a stretch that does not include the final games.

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NJ Transit MetLife World Cup: what’s expected on Jan. 15

NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said the agency will tentatively lay out how it plans to move large crowds to and from MetLife Stadium on Jan. 15. “A lot of work was done in 2025 and we have a lot to do for 2026,” Kolluri said.

Most of that next update is expected to answer the questions NJ Transit says it is hearing most often: how fans can buy transit tickets, and what NJ Transit schedules and schedule adjustments will look like on match days. For event-focused guidance on reaching the Sports Complex, NJ Transit directs riders to its Meadowlands travel page. The agency has also said it will share travel details tied to the month-long fan events planned alongside the tournament.

Anthony Grieco, senior vice president of communications and customer experience, said the information will cover transit ticketing, match-day schedule changes, and guidance for people traveling to related events. He added that NJ Transit plans to launch a micro website dedicated to FIFA World Cup information.

Grieco said the site will be built for four target audiences: people heading to the fan festivals, those traveling to the matches, visitors coming to the region, and NJ Transit’s regular customers. Impacts to existing riders, he said, will be prominently posted. He also said the site is intended to be Google translatable and mobile responsive so most users—many expected to rely on their phones—can view information in their native language.

Liberty State Park fan festival and regional travel

One of the major destinations NJ Transit plans to address is the FIFA fan festival at Liberty State Park in Jersey City. The festival is scheduled to run from June 11 through July 19 and is expected to include live match broadcasts, concerts, cultural showcases, and other events.

NJ Transit has said it will provide information for people attending the festival as well as those going to MetLife Stadium games. The goal is to make it easier for visitors and local riders alike to understand service options during a period when demand will surge across the region.

Transitway bus rapid transit line and added capacity to MetLife

At the same time, NJ Transit says progress continues on the MetLife Transitway bus rapid transit line, meant to augment existing rail service to the Meadowlands sports complex. Kolluri said construction is moving forward and that the Transitway is intended to help carry an additional 10,000 people per hour to and from the stadium.

He said that as soon as the last football game is done, construction will start on a temporary bus terminal. Other pieces are already underway, including work on the Rutherford lot needed for stacking buses, which he said began this week.

NJ Transit officials said additional work started in July with intersection improvements along the route planned between Secaucus Junction train station and MetLife Stadium, followed by signal upgrades. Construction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2026, prior to the start of the World Cup, leaving several months to test and debug the system before the summer World Cup finals, officials said.

NJ Transit has described Transitway as “like a light rail system without tracks,” and said it is being funded by a $100 million Federal Transit Administration grant, as noted in a NJ TRANSIT press release.

Transitway would supplement the existing Meadowlands sports complex rail line, which currently has a capacity of 10,000 people per hour for the 82,500-seat stadium. To deliver the added capacity, NJ Transit plans to use 100 of its larger articulated buses, each designed to carry up to 100 passengers.

Backup buses, contracts, and future Transitway phases

NJ Transit has also arranged a contingency plan in case of disruptions affecting trains or buses. The agency contracted in September to have 125 private buses on standby. Officials said a $3.4 million contract with A Yankee Line of Elizabeth provides 100 buses per day for all games and 125 buses for the final game on July 19 as a “contingency fleet to mitigate disruptions.”

The Transitway project was proposed in 2021. NJ Transit’s board approved a $34.9 million contract with HNTB Corporation in July 2023 for final Transitway design. On Wednesday, the board also approved a $22 million amendment to that contract to design Transitway’s second phase: a future bus rapid transit line extending between Secaucus and Jersey City.

That second phase is one of at least two future extensions referenced in 2023 concept plans. Those plans also describe a possible third extension to Montclair and Newark.

Kolluri said the next steps will depend on what designers recommend, but his vision is a closed-loop system running from Secaucus to Jersey City that would provide exclusive access to move people. He also said such an operation could potentially be autonomous.

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