By Reshmee Jugmohun, REALTOR®, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson in New Jersey, Prominent Properties Sotheby's International Realty. Published 08/31/2026.
Bergen County is served by three New Jersey Transit rail lines, and which one a town sits on matters more to a daily commute than how far that town is from Manhattan. All three, the Main Line, the Bergen County Line and the Pascack Valley Line, terminate at Hoboken Terminal, so reaching New York Penn Station means changing trains at Secaucus Junction. Two towns can be ten minutes apart on a map and considerably further apart in practice, because one has a station on a line you can use and the other does not.
That is the whole argument of this piece. What follows is how the county is laid out, what each rail line actually serves, where the bus beats the train, how the commute trades against what you pay in property tax, and what to test before you commit to a town.
How many towns are in Bergen County, and how do they differ?
Bergen County is made up of 70 separate municipalities, according to the Bergen County government, each with its own local government, its own budget and its own tax rate. That is an unusual amount of fragmentation for a county of this size, and it is the reason general statements about "Bergen County" are almost always too coarse to be useful.
The practical consequence for a commuter is that the county is not one market with one commute. It is dozens of small ones. A borough of a few thousand people with a station on the Pascack Valley Line, and a neighboring borough with no station at all, are governed separately, taxed separately and reached differently, even where the boundary between them is a single street.
The county divides usefully along three lines that have nothing to do with municipal boundaries: which rail line runs through a town, whether it has a station at all, and whether it sits close enough to the Hudson for a bus or a ferry to be the faster option. Almost every meaningful difference in a Bergen County commute traces back to one of those three. You can see the full range of what is available across the county on my Bergen County listings page.
What are the three rail options, and who does each serve?
The Main Line runs north from Hoboken Terminal through Secaucus Junction and up through Passaic County before re-entering Bergen County. Its Bergen County stations, running north, are Glen Rock Main Line, Ridgewood, Ho-Ho-Kus, Waldwick, Allendale, Ramsey, Ramsey Route 17 and Mahwah, which is the last stop in New Jersey before the line continues into New York State.
The Bergen County Line is the second route to the same place. It diverges from the Main Line just west of Secaucus Junction, runs its own path through the southern and central part of the county, and rejoins the Main Line at Ridgewood Junction. Its own stations include Rutherford, Wesmont, Garfield, Plauderville, Broadway, Radburn and Glen Rock Boro Hall before it reaches Ridgewood. North of Ridgewood the two lines share track, which is why Ho-Ho-Kus, Waldwick, Allendale, Ramsey and Mahwah appear on both.
The Pascack Valley Line is the eastern route, and it serves a completely different set of towns. From Hoboken and Secaucus it runs through Wood-Ridge, Teterboro, Essex Street and Anderson Street in Hackensack, New Bridge Landing, River Edge, Oradell, Emerson, Westwood, Hillsdale, Woodcliff Lake, Park Ridge and Montvale, then continues into Rockland County, New York, ending at Spring Valley. According to New Jersey Transit, it operates seven days a week.
Two structural facts follow from that layout, and they are the ones worth carrying around.
First, Ridgewood and Glen Rock are the two places where the network doubles up. Ridgewood sits at the junction and is served by both the Main Line and the Bergen County Line. Glen Rock is unusual in a different way: it has two separate stations, Glen Rock Main Line and Glen Rock Boro Hall, one on each line. That is a structural observation about where the tracks happen to run. It says nothing about what a house in either town is worth, and nobody should infer that it does.
Second, and this is the fact most people moving from the city get wrong: none of these three lines runs into New York Penn Station on its own. All three are Hoboken Division lines. They end at Hoboken Terminal.
Which towns give the fastest realistic door-to-door commute?
The honest answer is that it depends far less on distance than on how many times you have to change.
Secaucus Junction, which opened in December 2003, exists precisely to solve that problem. It is built on two levels. The lower level serves the Hoboken Division lines, which is to say the Main Line, the Bergen County Line, the Pascack Valley Line and the others that run to Hoboken. The upper level serves the electrified Northeast Corridor trains that run into New York Penn Station. A Bergen County commuter bound for Midtown gets off downstairs, moves up through the concourse, and boards a Northeast Corridor train upstairs.
That transfer is the single biggest variable in a Bergen County commute, and it is invisible on a map. A town that is closer to Manhattan in miles, but sits on a line with a less convenient connection or a thinner schedule at your hour, can take longer door to door than a town further out.
So the useful way to compare towns is not by distance. It is by asking four questions in order.
- Does the town have a station at all? Several well-known Bergen County municipalities do not. Oakland, Franklin Lakes, Wyckoff and Upper Saddle River have no rail station within their own borders. They are car-first towns, and saying so plainly is more useful than implying otherwise.
- Which line is that station on, and how many trains actually stop there at the hour you travel? A station on the map is not a station in your schedule. Some stops are served far more thinly than others outside peak periods.
- Where in Manhattan are you actually going? Midtown, the Financial District and the far west side are reached differently, and the fastest route to one is not the fastest route to another.
- How do you get to the station itself? This is the step almost everyone forgets, and it is covered further down.
None of that produces a ranking, and it should not. A town that works well for someone with fixed hours near Penn Station may work poorly for someone working downtown three days a week. The trade-offs are real, and they belong to your particular journey rather than to the town.
Where does the bus beat the train?
For a significant part of Bergen County, particularly the eastern towns close to the Hudson and the towns off the rail corridors entirely, the bus is not the fallback. It is the better option.
New Jersey Transit runs a network of bus routes from Bergen County into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. Route 165 runs from Westwood, route 166 from Cresskill and Bergenfield, and routes 163 and 164 serve the Ridgewood Park and Ride and Van Neste Square in Ridgewood, among many others.
Three things make the bus genuinely competitive rather than a consolation prize.
It goes to Midtown directly. A bus into the Port Authority Bus Terminal is a one-vehicle trip. For someone working on the west side of Midtown, that can beat a rail journey requiring a change at Secaucus, even where the train covers the distance faster.
It serves the towns rail does not. The Main Line, Bergen County Line and Pascack Valley corridors leave large parts of the county uncovered. Bus routes and park-and-ride lots fill in much of that gap.
Park and ride changes the calculation for the car-first towns. For a household in a town with no station, the relevant question is not "is there a train here" but "how far is the nearest park and ride, and can I actually get a space".
There is a third mode that is easy to overlook. NY Waterway operates a ferry from the Edgewater Ferry Landing, the one NY Waterway terminal in Bergen County, with Manhattan services to Midtown at West 39th Street, to Pier 11 near Wall Street and to Brookfield Place. For a commuter working in the Financial District, that routing can be materially different from anything the trains offer.
How does the commute trade off against property taxes?
This is the question underneath most Bergen County town searches, and it deserves a careful answer rather than a confident one.
New Jersey property tax is set municipally. With 70 municipalities in the county, each running its own budget and its own school arrangements, tax rates differ meaningfully between towns that sit next door to one another. That is a fact about how New Jersey local government is structured, not a judgment about any town.
What matters for this particular decision is that the tax rate and the commute are set by two entirely unrelated things. The rate comes from a municipal budget, the local ratable base and how schools are organized. The commute comes from where the railroad happened to lay track in the nineteenth century. There is no rule connecting them, which means the pairing has to be checked town by town rather than assumed.
The practical method is simple, and almost nobody does it properly. Do not compare town averages. Take the actual assessment on the actual house you are considering, and put it next to the actual journey you would make at the hour you would make it. A town average tells you about a distribution. It does not tell you about the house you are standing in.
I am not a tax advisor and this is not tax advice. How a New Jersey property tax bill is calculated, why neighboring towns differ so much, and what to do if you believe an assessment is wrong are a subject in their own right. Current rates by municipality are published by the Bergen County Board of Taxation, and any figure you rely on should carry the year it applies to.
What should you check before you commit to a town?
Five things, in roughly the order people skip them.
Ride the commute at the real hour. Not on a Saturday, not at eleven in the morning. On a weekday, at the time you would actually travel, including the change at Secaucus if your route has one. This single test tells you more than any amount of research, and it costs you one fare.
Read the schedule rather than the map. Look at how many trains stop at your station in the window you need, in both directions, and at what the service looks like when you have to leave early or stay late. A line with excellent peak service can be sparse at seven in the evening.
Check the station parking situation before almost anything else. Station parking permits in New Jersey are administered by each municipality rather than by New Jersey Transit, and the arrangements differ from town to town. Some have waiting lists. Because the rules are set locally and change, the only reliable answer is the one you get from the municipality itself. Ask the borough or township hall directly, and ask what the current wait actually is.
Work out the last mile. From your front door to the platform. Walking distance, a second car, a drop-off, or a bicycle. This is the part that determines whether a commute is still sustainable in February.
Check what happens when the network does not work. Every commuter route has a bad day. Knowing your alternative, whether that is a bus route, a different station or a different line, before you need it is worth more than a few minutes of typical journey time.
Where to start
If you are weighing two or three Bergen County towns against a Manhattan commute, the fastest way to make it concrete is to look at what is actually available in each of them at the same time as you test the journey. I can help you compare specific towns on the things that are measurable: which line, which station, what the housing stock looks like, and what the tax picture is on a particular house rather than on a town average. If you are arriving from further afield, my relocating to New Jersey guide covers the rest of the move.
Call or email me and tell me where you work and when you need to be there. That is usually enough to narrow the list from a dozen towns to three.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is there a direct train from Bergen County to New York Penn Station?
No. The three New Jersey Transit rail lines that serve Bergen County, the Main Line, the Bergen County Line and the Pascack Valley Line, are all Hoboken Division lines and they terminate at Hoboken Terminal. To reach New York Penn Station you change at Secaucus Junction, moving from the lower-level platforms used by the Hoboken Division lines to the upper-level platforms used by the electrified Northeast Corridor trains. This surprises a lot of people arriving from the city, and it is the single most important structural fact about commuting from this county.
Q: Does PATH serve Bergen County?
No. PATH's New Jersey stations are in Jersey City, Hoboken, Harrison and Newark. There is no PATH station in Bergen County. This is one of the most common misconceptions among people moving out of Manhattan and Brooklyn, who often assume the system extends further north than it does. If PATH is part of your mental model of a Bergen County commute, that model needs replacing before you start looking at towns.
Q: What is Secaucus Junction, and why do Bergen County commuters change there?
Secaucus Junction is a two-level transfer station in Secaucus, Hudson County, which opened in December 2003. Before it existed, New Jersey Transit's two divisions could not exchange passengers directly. The lower level serves the lines that run to Hoboken Terminal, including all three Bergen County lines. The upper level serves the electrified Northeast Corridor trains that run into New York Penn Station. It exists specifically so that a Bergen County rider can reach Midtown without going all the way to Hoboken, and for most Penn Station commuters from this county it is an unavoidable step.
Q: Can you take a ferry to Manhattan from Bergen County?
Yes, from one location. NY Waterway operates from the Edgewater Ferry Landing in Edgewater, which is its only terminal in Bergen County. Manhattan destinations include Midtown at West 39th Street, Pier 11 near Wall Street and Brookfield Place. For someone working in the Financial District or on the far west side, the ferry can produce a very different journey from anything the rail network offers. Check current schedules and landings directly with the operator, because services and stops change seasonally.
Q: How does New Jersey Transit fare pricing work, and does a hybrid schedule change what you should buy?
New Jersey Transit sells single tickets, multi-trip options and monthly passes, and the right choice depends on how many days a week you actually travel. The monthly pass is priced to reward five-day commuting. If you travel two or three days a week, the arithmetic can favor buying trips individually rather than a pass, and many people who moved to a hybrid schedule never re-ran that calculation. Check the current fare table on njtransit.com for your specific station pair before deciding, since fares and product options change.
Q: How frequent is service outside peak hours and at weekends?
This varies substantially by line and by station, and it is one of the things most worth checking before you commit to a town. The Pascack Valley Line, according to New Jersey Transit, operates seven days a week, but frequency across all three Bergen County lines is built around weekday peak commuting. If your life includes evening events in the city, weekend trips or a job with irregular hours, look at the off-peak and weekend timetables specifically rather than assuming the peak pattern holds.
Q: Which Bergen County stations are step-free or accessible?
Accessibility differs station by station across the three lines. Some Bergen County stations have high-level platforms and others are grade-level with older infrastructure, and the difference matters to anyone using a wheelchair, a walker, a stroller or a bicycle. New Jersey Transit publishes accessibility information for each station on njtransit.com, and that listing is the authoritative source. Check the specific station you would use rather than assuming a line-wide standard, because within a single line the stations are not equivalent.
Q: Can you take a bicycle on New Jersey Transit trains?
New Jersey Transit permits bicycles on trains subject to restrictions that vary by time of day and by service, with tighter rules around peak commuting periods. For someone in a Bergen County town where the station is two miles from home, a bicycle can solve the last-mile problem that would otherwise require a second car or a station parking permit. Check the current bicycle policy on njtransit.com before building a commute around it, and consider a folding bicycle, which is generally treated differently from a full-size one.
Q: Can you reach Newark Liberty International Airport by train from Bergen County?
Not directly. Because the Bergen County lines terminate at Hoboken, reaching the airport rail station involves a change, typically at Secaucus Junction onto a Northeast Corridor service, and then the airport connection. It is entirely doable and many people do it, but it is not a one-seat ride from anywhere in the county, and the total time is longer than the distance suggests. If you travel frequently for work, this is worth timing before you choose a town rather than after.
Q: What are your options when Hoboken or Secaucus service is disrupted?
Every Bergen County rail commute depends on a small number of shared chokepoints, and when one is affected the whole county feels it. The practical alternatives are the bus network into the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which runs on an entirely separate right of way, and, for the eastern towns, the ferry from Edgewater. The commuters who cope best are the ones who worked out their second route before they needed it. New Jersey Transit publishes service advisories in real time, and knowing which alternative applies to your specific town is worth ten minutes of preparation.
Reshmee Jugmohun is a licensed real estate salesperson in New Jersey with Prominent Properties Sotheby's International Realty. She is not an attorney, a tax advisor, a lender or a transit planner. Rail, bus and ferry information in this article was checked against operator sources in August 2026 and should be confirmed against current schedules before you rely on it.