NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- New Jersey Transit is preparing ferries as a contingency plan for World Cup transportation.
Ahead of the games at MetLife Stadium, the rail system has commissioned a pair of 600-seat boats that can take soccer fans across the Hudson River, according to Kris Kolluri, chief executive officer of NJ Transit. The New York Waterway boats will go from Weehawken, New Jersey to Manhattan, only for those traveling back to the city and only in case of a broader transit meltdown.
About 40,000 fans are expected to use NJ Transit to trek out to MetLife for each of the eight soccer matches being held at the venue. But in the past few weeks, a series of mishaps and snarls have caused commuter chaos and cast doubt on the system’s ability to operate properly during the World Cup.
Signage for the FIFA World Cup at Penn Station in New York, US, on Thursday, June 4, 2026. New Jersey Transit will reduce its controversial $150 World Cup ticket price to $105 after widespread pushback.Adam Gray/Bloomberg
Two separate fire incidents on Amtrak infrastructure on different days halted train service in and out of New York’s Penn Station.
“We have made it abundantly clear to Amtrak that they are the single point of failure if something were to happen on the system because without Amtrak we will not be able to execute a proper plan for FIFA,” Kolluri said at a Wednesday press conference.
NJ Transit has always planned to have extra buses if it’s unable to run trains between Penn Station and New Jersey and would need to carry fans on those vehicles instead. It now has 535 buses on hand in the event of a rail service shutdown, according to Kolluri.
“Our job in this world is to add layers of contingency,” he said “We thought it was only prudent to have two very large capacity boats as close to the New Jersey shoreline and as close to the New York shoreline as possible, Weehawken is the one that’s the closest.”
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