New Year's Weekend: Getting to, from NYC from Harrison

HARRISON, NY — It's a three-day New Year's weekend, so lots of folks will be headed in and out of New York City, most of them via Metro-North because who drives into the traffic nightmare that is Manhattan at Christmas?

Here's a handy guide for whether you're getting out of work early or coming in for New Year's Eve in Times Square.

Friday

Metro-North has laid on early getaway trains for Friday, beginning around 1 p.m. for East of Hudson lines. And check the schedule, because some late trains are cancelled.

The regularly scheduled Pascack Valley Friday-only train will depart Hoboken at 2:58 p.m., and stop at Secaucus Junction, select stations in New Jersey, and Pearl River, Nanuet and Spring Valley. Customers from Manhattan who are wishing to connect to this train should be on the 2:51 p.m. departure from Penn Station-NY to connect at Secaucus Junction. To accommodate this train, the 7:20 p.m. departure from Hoboken to Spring Valley will not operate.

Saturday

The commuter railroad will operate a special schedule. For those of you planning to party in Times Square (or anywhere else), the New Year's Eve schedule will include extra inbound late afternoon and early evening service. And when the party truly is finally over, their "overnight" New Year's morning service will get you home from your celebrations. (Reminder: no drinking on the trains from noon New Year's Eve until noon New Year's Day.)

Getting from Grand Central to Times Square: walk or take the Shuttle. As many as 2 million people are expected to converge on Times Square to celebrate New Year's Eve, and the whole area will be shut down to traffic.

There are no known direct threats to Times Square or New Year's Eve celebrations in New York City this year, NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said Thursday. But that isn't stopping the NYPD from beefing up security for the event, featuring the use of sanitation vehicles for the first time.

There will be nearly 7,000 uniformed officers deployed — including heavily-armed critical response units — to keep New Yorkers and tourists safe on New Year's, NYPD Chief of Department Carlos Gomez said Thursday. In addition, 65 sanitation vehicles and hundreds of smaller blocker vehicles will be used to set up multiple layers of security surrounding the celebration.

The use of sanitation vehicles will be a first for the NYPD on New Year's Eve, officials said. The NYPD decided to use the blocker vehicles after studying world events, such as the attacks on Nice, France and Berlin where terrorists used large vehicles as weapons, Gomez said Thursday.

With the highly visible security in place, and unseen security measures, Times Square should be one of the safest venues in the world on New Year's Eve, O'Neill said Thursday.

Click here and scroll down to find out what streets will be closed when.

Sunday

Metro-North will operate a Sunday schedule on the Harlem, New Haven and Hudson Lines, with a modified Sunday schedule west of the Hudson, with extra early morning departures on both the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley Lines after midnight.

Monday

East of the Hudson, since Monday is a holiday Metro-North will operate a Saturday schedule without the Shoppers Specials.

For Rockland and Orange counties, it's the classic Saturday/Sunday/Holiday schedule.

Brendan Krisel (Patch National Staff) contributed to this report.

Photo by Anthony Quintano via Flickr/Creative Commons