13. Commute

As of September 7, 2026. Timetables, fares and permit fees in this section change on fixed cycles (NJ Transit fares each July 1; Village parking permits each calendar year; rail timetables several times a year). Every figure carries its effective date.

The short version

Ridgewood is a Hoboken-terminal town. Every train from Ridgewood station goes to Hoboken Terminal. There is no train from Ridgewood to New York Penn Station, and there has never been one. A Manhattan-bound rail commuter either changes at Secaucus Junction to a Northeast Corridor train for Penn Station, or rides to Hoboken and takes PATH or a ferry. Midtown Direct, the one-seat service that Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton towns advertise, does not serve the Main Line or the Bergen County Line.¹²

That is the structural fact about the Ridgewood commute, and it is the one that consumer real estate sites usually blur into “about an hour to Midtown.” The honest description is a two-seat ride to Penn Station and a two-seat ride (rail plus PATH) to Lower Manhattan or 33rd Street, with a one-seat ride only to Hoboken.

Two lines, one station

Ridgewood sits where NJ Transit’s Main Line and Bergen County Line come back together. The two lines split at Secaucus and run different routes through southern Bergen County before rejoining just south of Ridgewood, at Ridgewood Junction north of Glen Rock.² The practical consequences for a Ridgewood rider:

• Both lines stop at Ridgewood. Ridgewood riders can take whichever train comes next; the two lines serve different intermediate stations but the same endpoints (Hoboken; Suffern or Waldwick outbound).
• Bergen County Line trains stop at Glen Rock-Boro Hall, Radburn, Broadway (Fair Lawn), Plauderville, Garfield, Wesmont and Rutherford before Secaucus.²
• Main Line trains stop at Glen Rock-Main Line, Hawthorne, Paterson, Clifton, Passaic, Delawanna, Lyndhurst and Kingsland before Secaucus.³
• Some peak-period trains terminate or originate at Ridgewood rather than continuing to Waldwick or Suffern. Historically this has meant a few extra peak departures for Ridgewood that towns north of it do not get.²

Ridgewood station itself was rebuilt for ADA compliance between February 2009 and September 2011 and has high-level platforms on three tracks.¹ The ticket office at 6 Garber Square is open 5:00 AM to 12:30 PM weekdays (closed 10:20 to 10:50 AM), closed weekends; two ticket vending machines sit outside the building.⁴ Ho-Ho-Kus, the next station north, is not ADA-accessible; Glen Rock-Main Line, the next station south on the Main Line, has low-level platforms and is not ADA-compliant.⁵⁶ For anyone with a stroller, a bicycle or a mobility limitation, Ridgewood is the accessible station in this stretch of the line.

Ridership. Ridgewood averaged 1,228 weekday boardings in 2025, ranked 26th of 153 NJ Transit stations. Ho-Ho-Kus averaged 308 (84th). Glen Rock’s two stations combined averaged 602 in 2024; Radburn 799 in 2024.¹⁵⁶⁷ The Main and Bergen County lines together carried about 17,300 weekday riders in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.³

Service levels: what the schedule says

The figures below are from NJ Transit’s own schedule service for a regular weekday (Wednesday, September 10, 2026) and the following Saturday and Sunday, under the timetable effective August 30, 2026.⁸

What that means in practice. In the morning peak a train leaves Ridgewood roughly every 12 minutes, and the ride to Hoboken is 45 to 50 minutes on most of them; two trains, the 7:01 and the 7:35, run a shorter stopping pattern and make it in 39. For Penn Station, add the walk between the two levels at Secaucus and the wait for the next Northeast Corridor train: the schedule’s connecting times show that adding 5 to 15 minutes, for a door-to-door of about 55 minutes to an hour on most peak trains and 47 to 48 minutes on the two fast ones. Coming home, fifteen trains leave Hoboken between 4 and 7 PM, about one every 11 minutes.

Off-peak, the pattern is two trains an hour, a Main Line and a Bergen County Line train a few minutes apart, then a gap of 45 to 50 minutes. Weekends are the same two-trains-an-hour pattern all day. A commuter who misses a train off-peak or on a weekend is waiting most of an hour, which is the single biggest difference between Ridgewood’s service and a Midtown Direct town’s.

Direct Penn Station service: verified negative. No train on the Main Line or Bergen County Line operates to New York Penn Station. The Wikipedia line summaries and NJ Transit’s station page both list Hoboken as the sole eastern terminus.¹²³ The physical reason is that these lines reach Secaucus on the upper level, which has no track connection to the Northeast Corridor on the lower level. The Gateway program’s proposed “Bergen Loop” (also called the Secaucus Loop) would build that connection and give Main, Bergen and Pascack Valley riders a one-seat ride to Penn Station. It is a second-phase Gateway element with a construction window described as 2024 to 2030; it is not funded to completion, not under construction as of this writing, and should not be priced into a Ridgewood purchase.¹¹

What changed in 2025 and 2026

• Portal North Bridge opened March 13, 2026, three days early, replacing the 115-year-old swing bridge on the Northeast Corridor between Newark and Secaucus. A one-track cutover ran February 15 to March 15, 2026 with reduced service.¹² This affects Ridgewood riders only on the Secaucus-to-Penn leg; the Hoboken-bound leg does not cross Portal Bridge. The benefit is fewer bridge-related delays on that final segment, not a faster scheduled time.
• Hoboken Terminal. The PATH station at Hoboken closed for most of February 2025 for track and platform replacement, and again for five days August 28 to September 2, 2025 for emergency interlocking repairs. NJ Transit awarded a $211 million contract in March 2024 to rebuild six tracks and three platforms at the terminal, with construction under way since May 2024. The rebuilt bus terminal reopened December 8, 2025.¹³ Track work at Hoboken has produced and will continue to produce weekend and off-peak schedule adjustments on all Hoboken Division lines.
• Schedule revisions. NJ Transit issued Main/Bergen timetable changes effective November 10, 2024 (“minor time changes”), March 15, 2026, May 31, 2026 and August 30, 2026.⁸⁹¹⁴ Four revisions in 22 months is normal for this line; the point for a buyer is that any specific train time quoted during a house search will probably not survive to closing.

Fares

Ridgewood is in NJ Transit rail fare zone 9.¹ Rail fares are set by origin and destination, so the Hoboken fare and the New York Penn Station fare differ, and a New York ticket is valid for the Secaucus transfer.

Fare history matters here because it is now on autopilot. NJ Transit raised fares 15% systemwide on July 1, 2024 (its first increase since 2015), then 3% on July 1, 2025, and 3% again on July 1, 2026. The 2024 board action built in automatic 3% increases every July 1 without further hearings; the July 1, 2027 increase is already scheduled.¹⁵¹⁶ One-way tickets expire 30 days after purchase; monthly passes go on sale at 5 PM on the 19th of the prior month.¹⁷

Fares are as returned by NJ Transit’s schedule service on September 9, 2026, and match the Adjusted Fares effective July 1, 2026.¹⁸ Apply 3 percent for the July 1, 2027 figure: about $309 and $373 a month.

NJ Transit’s published systemwide range after the 2026 increase is $1.80 to $23.85 for a one-way rail ticket.¹⁸ A monthly rail pass is also valid on NJ Transit buses and light rail for the number of zones printed on it.¹⁸ For a five-day commuter the New York monthly works out to about $8.60 a round trip against $23.60 on one-way tickets; the Hoboken monthly, about $7.15 against $21.90.

Station parking: the expensive part

This is where Ridgewood diverges from its neighbors, and it belongs in carrying-cost math.

The Village of Ridgewood, not NJ Transit, owns and prices every commuter lot. The station lot at Garber Square (Lot 1) has 105 standard spaces plus 5 accessible spaces.⁴ The Hudson Street garage, four levels and 240 spaces, was financed with a $12 million bond ordinance in July 2018 and opened November 6, 2020.¹⁹²⁰ Debt service on that garage is one of the reasons the permit prices below look the way they do.

Permit structure (Village of Ridgewood, 2026 program).²¹²²²³

The 2024 column is from the Village’s own archived parking page. The 2026 resident Premium figure of $1,500 is confirmed from the Village’s 2026 Ridgewood Parking Permit Application (DocumentCenter View 418, posted December 18, 2025). The remaining 2026 figures come from a January 31, 2026 local blog post and are flagged; the same Village PDF lists them and should be read in full. The Village parking page (retrieved September 7, 2026) confirms: kiosks and meters $1.25 per hour, Monday to Friday 9 am to 8 pm and Saturday 10 am to 6 pm, Sunday and federal holidays free; the train station lot is three-hour kiosk parking after 9 am only, and before 9 am requires a Premium Permit or a Resident Sticker with a daily pass; Hudson Street garage level 2 all day with a Premium Permit, level 3 all day with either permit or a daily pass, level 4 for CBD employees; Cottage Place lot all day; permits are obtained at the Village Hall reception desk.²¹²²²³†

How permits are sold. In person only, at the Village Hall reception desk, 131 North Maple Avenue, Monday through Friday 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, with a driver’s license and current vehicle registration for each car. Sales for the following year open in mid-December (December 17 in 2024; late December in 2025). Daily passes for the station lot, garage level 3 and Cottage Place are sold online through the Village site to holders of the free resident sticker.²¹²²²⁴

Capacity and the waitlist. The Village has capped premium permits in the past (210 in the 2018 program) and has run a lottery for the small number of on-street commuter spaces on Ridge Road South.²⁵²⁶ Whether a waitlist exists for 2026 premium permits, and how long it is, is not published.†²²

Rules that surprise new owners. Non-residents may not park in the station lot 6 AM to 6 PM Monday through Saturday. No parking in the station lot 1 AM to 5 AM. Permit requirements in the off-street lots lift at noon on weekdays, when three-hour public parking opens on every level of the garage.⁴²⁰²⁶ The Village ended the non-resident annual placard program on December 31, 2023 by ordinance, though non-resident premium and non-premium permits still appear on the current fee list; which non-resident products remain for sale is a question for the same phone call.²⁶

What neighbors charge. The same January 2026 blog post that reports Ridgewood’s $1,500 lists Allendale at $75 (resident) and $300 (non-resident), Glen Rock at $240, Ho-Ho-Kus at $275 and the Route 17 Park and Ride at about $975.²³ Glen Rock-Main Line has 190 spaces.⁶ These are secondary figures and should be confirmed with each borough, but the order of magnitude is the point: a Ridgewood commuter who parks at the station pays five to twenty times what the next town over charges, every year, and that gap is a recurring cost of the address in the same way the tax bill is.

Bus

Ridgewood Bus Terminal is a shelter with benches at Oak and Dayton Streets at Van Neste Square, about 820 feet from the train station.²⁷ Three NJ Transit routes matter for a Manhattan commute:

• Route 163 to Port Authority Bus Terminal via Garden State Plaza and Route 4; terminates at Ridgewood.²⁷²⁸
• Route 164 to Port Authority Bus Terminal; a variant of the 163 that continues north to Midland Park and serves the Ridgewood Route 17 Park and Ride.²²⁸
• Route 175 to the George Washington Bridge Bus Station (A train at 175th Street, A and 1 at 181st) via Route 4, Hackensack and Paramus; terminates at Ridgewood.²⁷²⁹

Route 148 does not serve Ridgewood. It is a weekday rush-hour route from Midland Park that runs to Manhattan by a different alignment.²⁸ Listings that mention “the 148” for Ridgewood are describing a route that does not stop in the Village.†

Driving

Ridgewood has no direct highway. Route 17 runs along the eastern edge of the Village; Route 4 is reached via Route 17 south. The George Washington Bridge is reached by Route 4 east; the Lincoln Tunnel by Route 17 south to Route 3.†

Bridge and tunnel tolls are set by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and change on a separate schedule from NJ Transit fares.

Park-and-ride alternatives

The zone numbers are worth a second look. Glen Rock is zone 8 and Radburn is zone 6; a household that drives five minutes south to board pays a lower monthly fare and, on current secondary figures, a fraction of the parking cost. Whether that trade is worth it depends on the household, but it is a real trade, and it is one that Ridgewood’s own pricing creates.

What I tell my buyers: the number to add to the monthly carrying cost is not the train fare. It is the train fare plus $125 a month for a premium permit, if you can get one, and the answer to “can I get one” is a phone call the Village will not put on its website. Make that call before the inspection, not after.

† Figures marked with a dagger are best-effort research, so verify them with the issuing office (the Village of Ridgewood, the school district, the county, the state or the utility) before making judgment calls or decisions on them.