In Essex County, the Portal Bridge Detour Depends on Your Station

"Nobody wants disruptions to their work or daily life," Nick Giglia told Montclair Local this week. He lives in Montclair and founded the transit advocacy group Restore Our Transit in Essex. He described the spring phase of the Portal North Bridge work as "very disruptive." He also pointed out that the work finished on schedule and that the goal was a bridge that would no longer "occasionally need to be hit with mallets to close."

The second and final cutover starts this weekend. NJ Transit and Amtrak begin the last track transfer on Friday evening, October 9. Special schedules take effect Sunday, October 11. Regular schedules are expected back on Sunday, November 15, if safety testing is complete. Montclair Local lists Monday, November 16 as the first fully normal weekday.

Every Essex County rider on the Midtown Direct lines will be on the same diverted train. What differs from town to town is how you get to the station and how you get from Hoboken into Manhattan. The next five weeks will go more smoothly in some towns than in others.

What the train itself does

On weekdays, every Midtown Direct train on the Morris & Essex lines, the Gladstone Branch and the Montclair-Boonton Line will run to Hoboken instead of Penn Station New York. On weekends, Midtown Direct trains still run to and from Penn Station.

There are also fewer trains. According to NJ Transit's September 17 briefing, the Morristown Line and Gladstone Branch drop from 148 weekday trains to 139. The Montclair-Boonton Line drops from 64 to 60. In percentage terms, Montclair-Boonton loses a slightly larger share of its weekday trains, on a line that already had less than half as many. If you miss a train in Bay Street or Watchung Avenue, the wait for the next one may be longer than you are used to.

When you reach Hoboken, three options are cross-honored with your ticket:

• PATH, between Hoboken and 33rd Street only
• NY Waterway ferry, between Hoboken Terminal and West 39th Street only, with extra service during the morning and evening peaks
• NJ Transit's No. 126 bus, to the Port Authority Bus Terminal

The ticket is the first thing to change

NJ Transit wants weekday Midtown Direct riders to buy tickets and passes with Hoboken as the destination, not New York. The agency says that buying a Hoboken ticket and then taking PATH or the ferry can save up to 25% per trip, depending on your origin station. For the cutover, it is also selling a FLEXPASS, which is 20 trips at a 15% discount.

Weekends follow a different rule. A Hoboken monthly or weekly pass or a FLEXPASS still works to and from Penn Station on Saturdays and Sundays. A Hoboken one-way ticket does not. A one-way weekend ticket has to show a New York destination. If you buy one-way tickets for a Saturday dinner in Manhattan, that difference matters.

NJ Transit also warns that the Hoboken connections have limited capacity and may get very crowded.

Town by town, the first mile is not the same

South Orange

South Orange has made the most specific changes for this phase. The South Orange Parking Authority has posted "HOBOKEN ONLY" schedules for its Newstead and Tuxedo Park/Montrose jitneys, valid October 11 to November 14. Every run is timed to a Hoboken-bound train. On the Tuxedo Park/Montrose route, the morning jitney reaches South Orange station at 6:17, 6:41, 7:27, 8:00 and 8:23. The matching Hoboken trains leave at 6:24, 6:50, 7:32, 8:09 and 8:28. Your margin at the platform ranges from five to nine minutes. The Newstead jitney stops at South Orange Avenue at the Newstead Condos, Speir Drive, Hoskier Road, Glenview Road, Wyoming Avenue and Franklin Place. It reaches the station at 6:16, 6:41, 7:26, 7:55 and 8:23. Both routes also run evening trips timed to trains arriving from Hoboken. They operate Monday through Friday, weather permitting.

The authority used the same approach in the spring, with temporary Hoboken-only schedules from February 15 to March 15. Riders on these routes have already been through this once.

Maplewood

Maplewood also adjusted for the spring. It published cutover schedules for its Elmwood/Parker, Maplecrest/Hilton and Wyoming jitneys, valid from February 15 to March 14, 2026. We could not find a fall version. The township's jitney page still shows the standard schedules effective January 1, 2026, which are based on NJ Transit times posted in August 2025. The page lists a single ride at $3 and a jitney pass at $165. The train times have changed. If you take the jitney to Maplewood station, check the township page for an update before Monday, October 12. Do not reuse the spring schedule, because those train times were for a different service plan.

Montclair

Montclair has a private bus already running. Boxcar's Essex Express picks up at the Montclair YMCA on Park Street, Watchung Avenue station on Park Street, Upper Montclair station and Valley Road at Mt. Hebron Road. It also stops in Verona, West Caldwell and Clifton. Boxcar lists different fares on different pages. The route page shows $19.99, or $13.33 with a membership. The company's New Jersey route list shows $22.99, or $15.33 with a membership. Check the fare in the app when you book.

NJ Transit's 191 bus runs to Port Authority from Montclair State University, Montclair Heights and Great Notch. The 191/195 timetable also lists Allwood Park & Ride in Clifton. The township's own transit page notes that DeCamp ended its New York commuter service on April 7, 2023, and points riders to NJ Transit buses and Boxcar.

Bloomfield, Glen Ridge and lower Montclair

This area has the fewest confirmed alternatives. Boxcar's cutover site shows a proposed Midtown route with pickups at Walnut Street, Bay Street, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield. It is still listed as "Gathering interest," with more than 200 supporters and no launch threshold or decision date. A proposed South Orange/Maplewood route has the same status, with more than 100 supporters. In Bloomfield's 2026 transit survey, residents named NJ Transit buses from Allwood Park & Ride, including routes 191 and 192, as one way they get into the city.

What the spring showed about Hoboken

The spring phase is the best guide to what Hoboken Terminal will be like. On February 17, the first full weekday of the diversion, NJ.com reported crowds filling the terminal and staff directing riders to PATH and the ferries. Four morning trains were canceled and some delays reached 50 minutes. The same report found some lines for the ferry but little crowding once riders were aboard. With extra peak ferry service promised for this phase, the boat to West 39th Street looks like the transfer most likely to have room.

The most useful tool from the spring was built by a local rider. RerouteNJ was created by Joe Amditis, a Bloomfield resident and associate director at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. You choose your line and station, and it shows the change, the transfer and which ticket to buy. Amditis estimates it had about 24,000 page views during the first cutover. His advice for this phase:

1. Check the destination on your ticket. Weekday trips need Hoboken, and weekend rules are different.
2. Know your Hoboken transfer before you arrive: PATH to 33rd Street, the 126 bus, or the ferry to West 39th Street.
3. Check again before you leave, using the NJ Transit app or the official cutover page.

The spring phase also ended a little early for some riders. Amditis said some trains began using the new bridge a couple of days before full service returned on March 15. NJ Transit's own announcement said passenger service on the first new track would begin Monday, March 16.

What the five weeks pay for

The bridge being replaced is 116 years old. It is a swing bridge that has to open for boats on the Hackensack River. The new Portal North Bridge is a fixed span 50 feet above the water, high enough that boats pass underneath without stopping trains. NJ Transit lists fewer bridge-related delays among the benefits. Amtrak officials told NJ.com the new bridge has a 90 mph speed limit, compared with 60 mph on the old one. That is the bridge's speed rating. No measured change in trip times has been published yet.

This stretch matters to a lot of people. NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri says the Newark to New York segment carries more than 400 trains and 200,000 NJ Transit and Amtrak riders each weekday. The remaining work is part of a $1.56 billion contract that NJ Transit awarded to the Skanska/Traylor Bros PNB Joint Venture in 2021. The agency says it was the largest construction contract in its history. Once the second track is in service, NJ Transit plans to retire the old bridge.

Until then, the practical steps are simple. Buy a Hoboken ticket for weekdays. Check that your station connection has been updated for the new train times. Decide which Hoboken transfer you will use before you get there. If testing goes as planned, regular Midtown Direct schedules return on Sunday, November 15.

Rail access is part of what a home's address offers, and changes like this one show how much a commute depends on the station you use and how you get there. If you are thinking about a move between Essex County and the Hudson waterfront, or want to know how transit access shows up in a home's value, Hudson Gold Team can walk through it with you, station by station. Contact Us.