Originally Posted by guv1976
While this strategy will work, it requires the traveler to stand in line for tickets twice: once at New York Penn Station, and once at the EWR Airport Rail Station. You can avoid this problem by purchasing, at New York Penn Station, an NJ Transit ticket from Newark Penn Station to EWR Airport Rail Station for $7.50, and then paying the train conductor NJ Transit's standard "change-in-terminal" fee of $3.00, for a total charge of $10.50. (Note: the Newark AirTrain airport access fee has gone up from $5.00 to $5.50, so one would pay $10.50 your way or my way.)
I didn't know about the turnstile fare increase. Thanks for the info.
One counterpoint: there are still a couple reasons to consider the NYP-Elizabeth + turnstile-ticket option instead of the NWK-EWR + change-in-terminal option, paritcularly for frequent users of the EWR AirTrain:
- You can buy round-trip off-peak tickets to Elizabeth, but not to EWR, which allows you to save more if you're traveling round-trip at off-peak times. (not applicable to the OP)
- Sometimes on crowded trains they don't get a chance to take your ticket on the NJTransit train. When this happens and you're holding an Elizabeth ticket, you can keep it and use it next time you are going to EWR. But if you're holding an EWR ticket, you'll still have to surrender it at the turnstiles. (note, however, that with the NWK-EWR+change-in-terminal method, if they don't come around to collect tickets, you'll still save the $3 change-in-terminal fee)