As crowds gear up to flood Times Square for the 2026 ball drop, the MTA is rolling out its game plan to get New Yorkers to the party–and back home again–without too much chaos.
Expect schedule changes across subways, buses, and commuter rails on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, with extra service focused on Midtown and Times Square as celebrations ramp up. While most transit will follow holiday or weekend schedules on January 1, subway service will go into overdrive on New Year’s Eve to accommodate the city’s biggest night of the year.
Here’s exactly what riders need to know before heading out.
🚇 New York City Subway
- New Year’s Eve (Wednesday, December 31): trains will operate on a regular weekday schedule with extra trains added on lines serving Times Square from the early evening through after midnight
- New Year’s Day (Thursday, January 1): trains will operate on a Sunday schedule
- Increased service: the MTA will boost service on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, C, D, G, L, N, Q, R, and 42nd Street S lines to help riders reach the Times Square ball drop
- Note: for security reasons, trains will skip stops in and around Times Square starting 15 minutes before the ball drop and continuing until 15 minutes after it ends.
🚍 New York City Buses
New Year’s Eve (Wednesday, December 31)
- Reduced weekday schedule: bus routes in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens, with some Queens buses running on a normal weekday schedule
- Regular weekday schedule: B100, B103, BM1 through BM5, and all BXM routes
- Weekday school-closed schedule: Staten Island buses
- Note: bus routes in Midtown may experience delays and/or detours due to road closures
New Year’s Day (Thursday, January 1)
- Buses in all five boroughs will be on a Sunday schedule
🚆 Commuter Rails: LIRR & Metro-North
Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)
- New Year’s Eve: regular weekday schedule, plus 11 additional trains on the Babylon, Montauk, Ronkonkoma, Port Jefferson, and Port Washington branches to Manhattan in the evening and from Manhattan in the early morning
- New Year’s Day: weekend schedule
Metro-North Railroad
Metro-North will add extra late-night and post-midnight service for riders traveling to and from the Hudson Valley and Connecticut.
- New Year’s Eve: regular weekday schedule with additional evening inbound trains on the Harlem, New Haven, and Port Jervis lines
- New Year’s Day:
- Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven lines will run on a special schedule with hourly service at most stations
- Port Jervis and Pascack Valley lines, plus the New Canaan, Danbury, Waterbury, and Wassaic branches, will operate on a weekend schedule
🚆 New Jersey Transit
- New Year’s Eve: trains will run on a modified weekday schedule, with added service to New York and Hoboken from late afternoon through the evening on the RVL, M&E, and Port Jervis lines
- New Year’s Day:
- Additional late-night trains will operate on all lines except the Atlantic City Line
- Extra departures from Penn Station New York, Hoboken, and Trenton–with connecting service from Newark Broad Street, Summit, and Long Branch–will run through the early morning hours
- After 6:30 am, a regular weekend/major holiday schedule resumes
More details are available on NJ Transit’s website.
⁉️ How to Stay in the Loop
- mta.info – the definitive source for real-time arrivals and the Service Status lookup tool
- MTA app – perfect for chatting with customer service if you get stuck
- TrainTime app – essential for LIRR and Metro-North riders to buy tickets and track GPS train locations
- Email & Text Alerts – alerts tailored to their specific commutes and travel times–customers can sign up here
- 511 – information is available by dialing 511
Happy travels, and here’s to a smooth ride into 2026. Happy New Year, New York! 🎉