There’s rumours going around that football fans will be charged USD 150 to catch a train to Metlife Stadium, and that walking is illegal/prohibited. From aerial photos of the area there seem to be sidewalks leading into the stadium parking lot from the north-east and north-west, but these sidewalks are not mapped in OSM. Google also doesn’t seem to know of them and instead routes pedestrians down to the motorway off-ramp.
It would be cool if these sidewalks could be mapped so that fans are able to get there on foot from the nearest non-FIFA train station.
While the north side stable entrance you noted does have a sidewalk near it, there is no sidewalk connection to the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Attempting to walk to the stadium will probably get you stopped at the gate.
Streetview images from November 2025 show a freshly paved sidewalk that connects Paterson Plank rd to the A plaza gate. OSM already has mapped sidewalks from just south of the A plaza gate to the rest of the complex. Did they leave a gap just south of the A plaza?
Regardless of sidewalks, whether or not you’d be stopped at the gate is a whole other matter, but it seems that would not be because of legality…
This one? Calling it a sidewalk seems a bit generous to me, it’s just as likely to be a verge paved for ease of maintenance.
At the Paterson Plank Road intersection you can see that actual sidewalks in the area are wider and made of concrete, not asphalt. They also don’t have signposts set right into them…
I’m merely applying the same standard that other sidewalks in the area are built to. It has been purposefully connected to the sidewalk along Paterson Plank rd, and routed past driveways, which makes no sense if it was paved merely for maintenance. None of the other verges – that do not connect to existing sidewalks – have been paved.
These two examples don’t prove much. One could be old enough to have been grandfathered in before regulations such as the ADA made it illegal to build a sidewalk blocked by utility poles, and there’s still some room to get around those poles. The other looks fine to me, not obstructed by anything.
The connection you’re hoping for doesn’t look like a sidewalk to me. No one would intentionally build a sidewalk obstructed by two signposts a foot part without any way to get around them, other than to step down into the street. At a glance, isn’t this just the asphalt pavement of the parking lot that got cut off by a fence?
I could see an argument for keeping some sort of navigable way with lots of disclaimers like informal=yes and wheelchair=no. But there’s hardly an argument on legal grounds, especially when the state police have apparently gone out of their way to put up a sign saying it’s illegal.
To be clear, the sign is from Way: World of Blue (257502397) | OpenStreetMap, which is surrounded on 4 sides by highway=motorway. The north entrance isn’t quite as obviously problematic, and I haven’t found any official statements about walking in on Berrys Creek Road, just that you can’t park illegally in the area or attempt to sell tickets there.
Discussion of data from non-compatible sources:
I did spend some time looking around on Google Maps Street View, and agree that there has been some new sidewalk added between Paterson Plank Road and A Plaza in approximately November 2025. Some of this area may have had existing sidewalk that was previously covered with vegetation, but the whole thing appears to have been repaved. If there was existing sidewalk, it clearly ended at the driveway for the non-public lot prior to A Plaza. The Nov 2025 Google Maps Street View capture ends prior to A Plaza, so I can’t tell if the sidewalk continues through A Plaza or not. The new sidewalk connecting to the short sidewalk under the train bridge indicates to me that this is a sidewalk project, and not just paving for pavement’s sake.
The newest compatible imagery for the area, to my knowledge, is the Mapbox Satellite imagery, likely from Spring 2025. Microsoft Streetside is from 2021, I don’t see anything in Mapillary, and there’s a KartaView capture from 2018. There are no sidewalks entering the complex that are clearly visible on that imagery. For any new sidewalks to be mapped, someone will have to survey them.
Hmm… is Way: 223202926 | OpenStreetMap tagged correctly? Legally, would pedestrians be allowed on there? About a year ago it was changed from motorway_link to tertiary_link which I think has foot legal access implications in OSM. An explicit foot tag could be good to add if it can be confirmed.
I was not able to find any no pedestrians signs on the Streetside imagery. The law cited on the poster is https://law.justia.com/codes/new-jersey/title-39/section-39-4-34/, which is about uncontrolled crossings. It pretty much only says that you can’t cross a median barrier or where otherwise prohibited. Speed Limits for Local Roads - North & South Service Roads, Traffic Regulations, Reference/Links sets speed limits and parking regulations for the state-maintained sections of the North and South Service Roads, but nothing about pedestrians. I don’t see anything in the Rutherford or East Rutherford borough ordinances either. I couldn’t find any relevant Meadowlands District or Bergen County regulations.
So I think this falls into that fun category of “just because the police will stop you from doing it doesn’t mean it’s illegal”.
If you’re referring to the hotel lobby sign, other people commenting on that sign say it’s unauthorized use of the state police logo. And as has been stated in this thread, and other places, the cited statue has no relevance to the supposed prohibition, and there is very little indication that there actually is a prohibition.
But: literally what I was asking at the start of this thread is for someone or anyone to go out there and map what’s there. I would have armchair-mapped it myself if I thought armchairing this was the best approach, and I don’t, so armchairing the discussion is also not what I think is the best approach.
That’s the one I’m saying justifies someone going out there and mapping it.
Evidently at some point the strip beside the road was half as wide as what @Jarek posted because of a different fence. I suspect the original reason for this strip of asphalt is that they didn’t want to mow grass where it was too narrow for a lawnmower.
As you point out, the strip has since been connected to a sidewalk and it’s a little wider because they moved the fence. That would be the cheapest possible way to build a sidewalk through this spot, but I guess I’ve seen worse. (The park authority’s own zoning code requires sidewalks to be at least 4 feet wide.)
If someone does go out on a survey, I’d suggest that they check whether the signposts have also been moved. If not, this touches on a longstanding question about how to tag such obstructions. Not every traffic sign poking out of a sidewalk would pose a problem, but these would due to their dimensions. This would call for wheelchair=no at a minimum.
