The contract for a “transitway” that would help move fans from the Secaucus Junction train station to MetLife Stadium during the 2026 FIFA World Cup was approved by the NJ Transit Board of Directors last week.
Details on how much the new roadway — a dedicated route for buses that will shuttle fans — will cost were not made public. In fact, the NJ Transit board opted to award the contract for its construction through a “procurement by exception” instead of the traditional bidding process used by state and local government agencies to procure contracts.
Anselmi & DeCicco of Maplewood will be responsible for completing the work in time for the tournament’s kickoff at MetLife on June 13, 2026.
What did officials say?
Though details weren’t made publicly available, and no comments were made during the board vote, the approved resolution notes the amount was discussed in executive session.
John Chartier, a spokesperson for New Jersey Transit, said the contract includes terminal upgrades at the Secaucus transfer station to handle additional bus load, construction of a bus terminal at MetLife Stadium “capable of handling the doubling of current rail ridership capacity” and constructing roadway and signal priority in between.
“By using a federally compliant sole source procurement — also known as a procurement by exception — we are able to advance the project fast enough to construct it in time for the FIFA World Cup in 2026,” Chartier said. “Final negotiations with the contractor are still ongoing as we optimize the final designs for cost and speed of delivery to meet the very aggressive deadline.”
He said total authorization was “kept confidential to prevent biasing the ongoing negotiations with the total available funding amount made available by the board,” and the cost will be made public when negotiations are final.
Designs and plans
The board spent $35 million last summer for HNTB Corp. to fully design this new corridor but no actual estimate of the construction to build the dedicated roadway or to build a new terminal and to stock it with vehicles has been made public.
That contract was an extension of one awarded to HNTB in August 2021 to complete the earlier phases of the project for $3.5 million that included 10% design, according to board documents. Typically, a firm would complete about 30% design and then go out to bid again for the remainder of the design, or final design phase.
The HNTB concept is a 7-mile dedicated roadway that starts at Secaucus Junction and connects to County Road, then to the abandoned Boonton rail line, before linking up with I-95.
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There, a dedicated and protected road lane would run parallel to the highway until the exit for the Meadowlands, where a new terminal would be built.
Time is already tight for the project to be completed since World Cup matches start in East Rutherford in less than two years.
The agency had planned to operate and maintain the initial system before later soliciting "concessionary services to own, operate and maintain the large, full system once that is complete," a spokesperson said last summer.
Currently, a stub-end train line shuttles the masses by the tens of thousands to the Meadowlands complex for horse races, sports events and concerts. The American Dream mall also opened there in 2019.
The agency has touted its success in recent years, noting that nearly 80,000 people used the service during three Taylor Swift concerts last year but the nightmare situation after the 2014 Super Bowl and Wrestlemania in 2019 is still front of mind for many riders.
The current Meadowlands train line can carry about 10,000 people an hour, but NJ Transit needs the ability to move more than double that in an hour.
Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Transit awards contract for 'transitway' shuttle route for 2026 FIFA World Cup
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