Giants Stadium - Driving or Train? Experiences from 9/23

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gfunk23

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Going to tomorrow night's concert at Giants Stadium, and am debating whther it makes sense to drive or to take the NJ Transit from Penn Station (NYC). While I know there is no perfect solution, any tips or shared experiences from tonight's 9/23 show would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
Going to tomorrow night's concert at Giants Stadium, and am debating whther it makes sense to drive or to take the NJ Transit from Penn Station (NYC). While I know there is no perfect solution, any tips or shared experiences from tonight's 9/23 show would be appreciated. Thanks!

The train is fine, but expect big crowds.

This is KEY, to any event at the Meadowlands, and my free, valuable advice to all of you wonderful people.

Do NOT wait to buy your train ticket at Penn Station "after work." You will wait in a HUGE line at the machines to buy this ticket.

Buy it at lunchtime, or even the day before. Do what you have to to make this happen - when you see the mob waiting to buy their tickets...and you just waltz over to the nearest half empty NJ Transit train to secaucus...you'll be glad you did.

Trust me on this one people - don't screw yourself. Buy this ticket in advance.
 
Just got back via train. Levi is right. Getting your ticket ahead of time gives you a fighting chance but... while it was chaos at Penn, honestly, it was even worse at Secaucus. Basically what happened was things were so crazy at Penn (ticket lines 50-100 deep) that someone from NJ transit started telling people to get on the train w/o tickets and buy them at Secaucus.

Well, with the number of trains from Penn to Secaucus (pretty much every 10 minutes) there ended up being hundreds of people without tickets so the lines there were 50 deep too! And then you mix in all the people with tickets trying to get on the train to get to the platforms and it was ridiculous. When you finally made it down to the platform it was a mob scene. They let more people down than would fit onto the train. People were shoving to get onto the train so much that one woman was actually pushed into the "gap" between the platform & the train.

In all the trip took about two and a half hours from Penn to Giants Stadium - and quite stressful. There was another guy on the train with us that said it took him closer to three hours.

Simply, Secaucus was not ready for the number of people. Actually one of the NJ Transit guys on the platform said: "We had no idea there would be this many people." Now, maybe they'll learn from tonight in time for tomorrow and have more trains but who knows...

Of course, I don't know if it would be any better with traffic & parking but be prepared... even if you get your train ticket in advance at Penn, Secaucus is not fun.

On the bright side, the trip back was cake. Stadium to Upper West Side in about 1:15.

Good luck!
 
In my case, i had already a PATH ten-trip ticket so Hoboken was my only choice.
LOTS of people and i mean LOTS of people on the ticket machines, but i dunno if possible to buy tickets from Hoboken ahead.
Pretty easy trip from Queens to Giants except for the queues at the ticket machines. I missed one train at 6.07p because of this. NJ trains are veeeeeery slow btw.
At Hoboken, not a lot of people.... but in Seacaucus... oh my god...
The return was not so nice.... many people held up even tho there were 3 trains at 3 tracks and PATH do not come as much as you'd like. More than 2hrs from Stadium to Queens.
 
We drove in from Roosevelt, NJ - bout an hours' drive. We weren't sure about parking so we left pretty early and got there around 4ish. Still plenty of parking left and some really nice people in the parking lot. We didn't really care to see Muse so we just chilled in the lot and when we finally went in for the show, there were still parking places available.
We're going again tonite and probably will do the same thing, maybe leave a little later.
 
From the 1010 WINS radio website:

U2 Fans Say They Waited Hours for NJ Transit Trains

NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- It went from cheers to jeers for throngs U2 fans as they tried to make their way to and from last night's concert at Giants Stadium -- and many warned those headed to the final show tonight to be prepared to wait at the train station.

Some New Jersey Transit riders say they waited for up to two hours for a train and that it turned a wonderful night into a nightmare.

Concertgoer Andrea Giantonio tells 1010 WINS what should have been a 20 minute trip home to Hoboken took over two hours.

NJT officials say there were plenty of trains, but there were too few ticket machines to accommodate the throngs of people.
U2 Fans Say They Waited Hours for NJ Transit Trains
 
We drove form CT to Hoboken and it was a huge mess. In Hoboken, after waiting in line for about an hour for tickets, we watched the 7:31 train keep getting pushed back and back. It finally showed up around 8:00. And when we stopped in Secaucus, those people seemed a lot more pissed then the Hoboken group. Here's an idea-- if you encourage people to not drive and take the direct train, how about staffing more people at the ticket windows? Most of the time there were one or sometimes two windows open, so we had no choice but to wait in the ticket machine lines. We left before M.O.S. just to not have to deal with it and the trip home was smooth. They never even bothered checking to see if we had tickets on the train in either direction. Show was totally worth the aggravation, but we were very bummed to have missed Muse. Better to go way ahead today and, if they learn from yesterday, then you have extra time to hang out.
 
i took the PATH over to Hoboken and hopped on the 3:50 train to Giants Stadium. on the train were me, two other passengers, two conductors, and three NJ State Troopers.

it filled up to about 3/4 capacity at Secaucus.

long story short... on the way to the stadium, if you can... go to Hoboken instead of the Penn to Secaucus trip.

on the way home... i had a long walk as i was in the pitt and had to walk the length of the field to get out. didn't take that long, but long enough. the train line was already very long... much longer than it was at the Jets/Pats game. i figured i'd wander around and try to find some friends who were tailgating and then return in half an hour or so and the line would be much shorter.

big mistake.

got back to the line and it was just as long, if not longer. got on line... based on text messages i had sent... i got on the line around 11:50, finally got back to Hoboken by 1:16. so a 20 minute train ride means that it took me about an hour to get from the back to the front of the train line... whic is about what it used to take on the bus line.

90% of the train got out at Hoboken. PATH train was helf up in hoboken for 15 minutes waiting for a delayed Journal Square train. PATH'd it to 14th street, walked over to Union Square, waited for the 6 and was back in my apartment on the Upper East Side at 2:30.

may train it in again today, but will be taking car service home... if only to save my feet and legs from further torture.
 
Sounds like I missed the rush at Penn. I got a return ticket around 1pm and caught the 2:37pm train, changed at Secaucus and got the 3:30pm train to the stadium with no hassle whatsoever.

The queue after was horrendous so I waited and chatted to a lovely couple from Houston. We joined the queue after about 25 mins and were on a train within 10 mins, and caught a waiting train back to Penn. The massive crowd at Giants train station moved surprisingly quickly - but it was thoroughly depressing looking at the size of it, thinking it was never gonna move.
 
It is interesting hearing people say it took THREE hours to get there...they must have gotten there late?

I bought my tickets at Penn Station at lunch time. Met my friend at 6:40, and got on a 6:47 train to secaucus. At Seacaucus, there was a big crowd at the platform and tons of people waiting on line to buy tickets. It took a while for the train to show up, but I got on it. It was of course packed.

The key here is have some booze. Bring a flask or a beer. You can drink on the train, just make sure you do NOT have it in plain view when you get off. THe NJ troopers can ticket you if they see an open container on the platform.

Long story short, I was at the stadium at about 7:30. So all in all, it only took me an hour or so.

But I'm aggressive and crafty.

For those who took 2 hours...what time did you get there, and did you have to wait in a line for tickets?

Also... I was back at Penn station at 12 midnight on the dot. I left as they were taking their bows after with or without you. I guess I missed Moment of surrender...I know it's lame. But it was well worth it. Got on the first train out, got a seat, and chatted up some nice girls, one of whom I'll be seeing this weekend.

You might consider doing the slightly early leave.
 
The concert ended at 11:15 and we went immediately to get in line for the train. We were stuck in this line for over an hour until we finally got on a train at 12:35. There were still hordes of people waiting behind us at that point. Some were marveling at the calmness of the crowd given how aggravating the waiting was, and were commenting that a Giants crowd would have been bedlam if forced to wait like that.

The wait didn't have anything to do with tickets, which were never even checked.
 
if it makes you guys feel any better, it took us about 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot..And at one point I had a meathead screaming at me threatening to kick my ass because he accused me of cutting him off in line out of the parking lot.

So much for all the pece and love Bono preaches.
 
I hope people didn't expect anything less... I bought tickets in advance, hope to maybe sneak out during SURRENDER if my friend is okay with it... but always be prepared for it to suck and take a long time.

This is the shit storm of going to a stadium and this is new york baby. Of course it's crowded as shit.

I love the tips, but the reason I only am going to one show is I knew I couldn't take this stuff 2 nights in a row.

If it was at MSG, like last tour, I got to walk there and home. That made the whole experience even more AMAZING.

Why do you think many football fans think the best seat in the house is on TV? Not only do you not miss a play, but you don't have to get home 4 hours after it ended. That's just not fun.

I wish us all luck. Leave as early as you can going there, coming home. And just be prepared to wait.
 
I hope people didn't expect anything less... I bought tickets in advance, hope to maybe sneak out during SURRENDER if my friend is okay with it... but always be prepared for it to suck and take a long time.

This is the shit storm of going to a stadium and this is new york baby. Of course it's crowded as shit.

I love the tips, but the reason I only am going to one show is I knew I couldn't take this stuff 2 nights in a row.

If it was at MSG, like last tour, I got to walk there and home. That made the whole experience even more AMAZING.

Why do you think many football fans think the best seat in the house is on TV? Not only do you not miss a play, but you don't have to get home 4 hours after it ended. That's just not fun.

I wish us all luck. Leave as early as you can going there, coming home. And just be prepared to wait.

If you leave before Surrender you'll be fine. I was on the first train out. Good luck!

I was on the floor, which was pretty fast out close to the train. If you are upper deck, might want to leave a little earlier.
 
The local TV news here in NYC had stories on the train fiasco. Saw the one on ABC and NJ transit is saying they did the best they could considering the cowds (which is sad). I think I might have gone out to Long Island (I live in Queens) and taken a Long Island RR train that goes directly to the Meadowlands.
 
The local TV news here in NYC had stories on the train fiasco. Saw the one on ABC and NJ transit is saying they did the best they could considering the cowds (which is sad). I think I might have gone out to Long Island (I live in Queens) and taken a Long Island RR train that goes directly to the Meadowlands.

Does such a train exist? I was under the impression the Meadowlands train runs only from SEC to Meadowlands.

The real problem is this - they used to have a direct bus from Penn Station, which seemed to work pretty well. But you could get similar issues (waits) when the crowds were this big.

So they replaced it with this train.

They need BOTH. Doing the bus and train to two different locations 8 blocks apart would be a huge improvement.
 
I think they were mistaken. From the MTA/LIRR website

===
# Buy round-trip tickets to the Meadowlands (LIRR/NJT) in advance; select "To Another Station" and then "M" for Meadowlands at LIRR ticket machines at your home station. Meadowlands tickets are not available on-board, or from Penn or Brooklyn. Commuters/customers with LIRR tickets to Penn or Zone 1 should purchase Meadowlands tickets from NJT windows/machines.
=====

So I guess you can buy the tickets in advance, but still have to change trains.

I know there are direct-thru (one seat) trains that run for the 1pm football games from the New Haven line.
 
I was at the 9/23 show and stayed at the Sheraton Meadowlands (which is only .5 miles from the stadium and offered shuttle service for $5 each way). Getting there was a breeze. Getting out was HORRID. The concert ended at 11:15pm, we got back to the hotel at about 1:30am. The clusters of people and vehicles was the absolute worst I'd ever witnessed.

I hope it's going more smoothly now.
 
I was at the 9/23 show and stayed at the Sheraton Meadowlands (which is only .5 miles from the stadium and offered shuttle service for $5 each way). Getting there was a breeze. Getting out was HORRID. The concert ended at 11:15pm, we got back to the hotel at about 1:30am. The clusters of people and vehicles was the absolute worst I'd ever witnessed.

I hope it's going more smoothly now.

How come you didn't just walk back to the hotel? It's half a mile away.

Cops wouldn't let you?
 
How come you didn't just walk back to the hotel? It's half a mile away.

Cops wouldn't let you?

I wish it were that easy. If it was on the same road we would have, but it would have required crossing highways which wasn't high on the agenda.
 
I was at the 9/23 show and stayed at the Sheraton Meadowlands (which is only .5 miles from the stadium and offered shuttle service for $5 each way). Getting there was a breeze. Getting out was HORRID. The concert ended at 11:15pm, we got back to the hotel at about 1:30am. The clusters of people and vehicles was the absolute worst I'd ever witnessed.

I hope it's going more smoothly now.[/QUOTE

I was at the 9/24 show. It took me an hour to make the usual two-minute drive back to the Holiday Inn Express. I was lost much of the time...I've gotten badly lost at night in New Jersey before, so I was severely stressing as I made several wrong turns, one of which landed me in a Rutherford industrial park! If I'd been able to make a right turn out of the Meadowlands like I wanted, instead of being forced left by the cones and the cops, I would have been able to get where I needed to be much faster!
 
I wish it were that easy. If it was on the same road we would have, but it would have required crossing highways which wasn't high on the agenda.

There's that big tunnel to the Izod center that would have taken you across the turnpike.
 
the pedestrian bridge to the IZOD center does not cross the jersey turnpike... it crosses a meadowlands access road. it is possible to walk to a few of the hotels, but some of them would require walking across the turnpike, which isn't exactly a recomended thing to do.

the meadowlands is simply a poorly located facility. if the xanadu project ever gets finished it's only going to make getting in and out of there more of a nightmare than it already is.

took car service home last night as opposed to the train fiasco again... the longest part of the experience was actually finding the car, as many of them had troubles getting into the stadium parking lot because every entrance was turned into an exit after all the problems they had the night before. ended up getting to the UES and into bed by 1:15... late, but a heck of a lot better than the 2:30 bed time from the night before.
 
I'm glad the train fiasco is getting the media attention it deserves. We did it for Wednesday's show and it was a nightmare....it took almost 90 minutes just to get on a train, and there were loads of people still behind us in line. Not fun.

Had GA yesterday, so the car was parked in Lot 16 all day and, I must say, it wasn't all that bad to get out of the Stadium. A little slow, sure, but so much better than the train the night before.
 
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