NJ Transit Unveils $150 FIFA Train Ride, Promises Authentic New Jersey Experience Of Being Robbed, Delayed

The New Jersey Transit Authority, best known for smelling like a damp basement and arriving twenty minutes late, has finally found its calling, which is high-stakes highway robbery. 

With the 2026 World Cup approaching, officials unveiled a pricing scheme for the Meadowlands rail line that would make a Manhattan bottle-service promoter blush. For $100 to $150, fans can take an 18-mile round trip from Penn Station to MetLife Stadium. 

The same trip usually costs someone $12.90 and their sanity.

An exterior view of MetLife Stadium. (Eduardo MunozAlvarez/VIEW press via Getty Images)

The 775 percent markup is being framed as a "special event fare," though most locals see it as a mandatory donation to the NJ Transit incompetence fund. 

Apparently, the only way to move a soccer fan ten miles across a swamp without going bankrupt is to charge them like they are flying to Cincinnati.

Governor Mikie Sherrill defended the move, claiming the state must recoup the $48 million cost of operating the trains. 

Seniors, children, and disabled riders will all pay full price for the privilege of standing in a crowded vestibule next to a guy from Munich sweating through his jersey. 

The LED screen inside a NJ Transit train is seen at Secaucus Train Station prior to the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 semi-final match between Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid CF on July 09, 2025, in Secaucus, New Jersey. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

Passengers disembark from a New Jersey Transit train at Hoboken Terminal. (Photo by Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)

While FIFA rakes in $11 billion, NJ Transit is effectively holding the train doors hostage. 

New Jersey, never one for trends like efficiency or sanity, opted to make soccer even more unappealing to the American consumer. 

So if you are heading to the Meadowlands this summer, the most expensive part of the World Cup will not be the beer but the ride to get there.

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