How the NBA Finals and World Cup could combine for a commuting catastrophe
By Dana O’Neil, CNN
(CNN) — The World Cup in the US is a once-in-a-generation moment, a chance for the country to welcome the world to its shores for the greatest spectacle in sports.
Try selling that line to a New York Knicks fan trying to make it into the city from New Jersey on June 16.
Once in a generation? How about the Knicks in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999? How about maybe a chance to win a title for the first time in 53 friggin’ years on that day?
Please.
And you want spectacle? Keep an eye on that June date, when desperately hungry and insanely passionate New York basketball fans might be trying to get to Madison Square Garden for Game 6 at the same time visiting World Cup fans are forcing an end-around.
Welcome to New York, indeed.
The complicated situation boils down to this:
In what they say is an effort to relieve what would be too taxing of a crowd on its railways and double-down on security, NJ Transit officials elected to stop all outbound trains from New York four hours prior to the eight World Cup games being played in MetLife Stadium across the Hudson in New Jersey. They’ll hold them again for three hours after the conclusion of each match.
On June 16, France plays Senegal at 3 p.m. ET in what will be one of the more highly anticipated group stage matches. From 11 a.m. ET until the start of the match, only fans holding special World Cup tickets will be permitted to access NJ Transit areas at Penn Station and travel out of New York.
That is not great, but not the worst.
Here’s where it gets ugly: The same rules are in place from about 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET in reverse. Specifically, as NJ Transit explained to CNN Sports via email, the last train to arrive at New York Penn Station from Newark Penn Station will pull in at 5:43 and the last from Newark Broad Street gets in at 5:31.
If there is a Game 6, tipoff is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET.
Way back in 1963, the city took a wrecking ball to Penn Station, turning the beautiful Beaux Arts station into rubble. Folks were not happy. An architectural historian from Yale wrote of the end of the Beaux Arts original, “One entered the city like a God.’’ As for the new version, Vincent Scully added, “One now scuttles in like a rat.’’
But rebuilding Penn Station also allowed developers to relocate Madison Square Garden from Eighth Avenue and 50th to its present-day spot, between 31st and 33rd and 7th and 8th, and plop it directly above the railway. While the station lacked the grandeur of its predecessors, the rats could sure scuttle in conveniently. Fans holding tickets to anything in the Garden needn’t so much as head outside.
Now, Knicks fans – who have waited for an NBA title nearly as long as the Garden has been reopened (it reopened in 1968, the Knicks’ last title came in 1973) – will be diverted by, of all people, the French! Two of the crankiest cultures in the world coming together in a commuting catastrophe.
There is a plan in place.
“For Knicks fans traveling during that time, PATH will accept NJ Transit train tickets with a New York destination at Newark Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal for travel to 33rd Street Station in New York at no additional cost,’’ NJ Transit said in an email to CNN Sports. “Knicks fans who wish to travel on NJ Transit directly into PSNY will need to plan accordingly.’’
So yes, this is merely an inconvenience and not the end of the world. The 33rd St. Station is maybe a five-minute walk to the Garden. While the PATH goes easily from Hoboken to 33rd Street, you can’t get from Newark Penn Station to 33rd Street directly. You need to switch trains at Journal Square, and the trip takes about 42 minutes.
Also, PATH trains are smaller – think subway cars versus regional rail – and tend to fill up quickly. And if you check out the PATH website, they have already posted this disclaimer: During the FIFA World Cup this summer, streets and trains will be much busier. Allow extra time on match days.
The whole thing just seems … unnecessary. Admittedly, on its best day, Penn Station feels like a whirling dervish. More than 1,000 trains pass through daily, shuttling some 600,000 passengers onto Amtrak, NJ Transit, the subway or the Long Island Railroad. The unaccustomed might be lulled to believe it’s civil, as people patiently stand beneath the big boards, waiting for their trains to depart.
And then a track number is posted, precipitating a mad dash that runs somewhere between the running of the bulls in Pamplona and entering Wal-Mart on Black Friday in 1999.
But as a person who has traversed the trains of Europe – once with a tour guide who got in a fist fight while jockeying for a seat – it doesn’t feel like people will be terribly overwhelmed.
Plus, what seems worse: Muddling through the train station or running into a ticked off Knicks fan?
The-CNN-Wire
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