The visit of Pope Francis is expected to disrupt travel to the northeast next week. (Image: Catholic Church of England and Wales/Flickr)
If your travel schedule will take you to the northeast next week — specifically to New York, Philadelphia and/or Washington D.C. — you might want to reschedule. If you can’t, you should study the itinerary for Pope Francis’ official visit to the U.S. and try to work your schedule around his.
Why? Because millions of the faithful are going to be thronging those three cities to get a glimpse of His Holiness, and massive security precautions will be in place — and the result will be overcrowded public transportation, massive street closures, monumental traffic backups and general chaos and disruption for visitors who need to get to a meeting.
Pope Francis (Photo courtesy Bill Wilson Photos)
The specifics: Pope Francis is due to arrive in the U.S. Tuesday afternoon at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. He’ll be in the nation’s capital on Wednesday and Thursday, September 23 and 24; on Thursday afternoon he flies into New York JFK, and he’ll remain in the city through Friday, September 25; he’ll fly out of JFK to Philadelphia Saturday morning, and he’ll be in Philadelphia Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27.
For starters, check out the official schedule for the Pope’s visit to see exactly where he will be in each city at which hours of the day.
Although Washington D.C. is no stranger to welcoming foreign dignitaries, the schedule of street closings and parking restrictions in the heart of the city is quite exhaustive for the papal visit. You can find all the details, hour by hour, at this website. In many cases, the closings will start hours before the Pope actually gets into the area.
In New York City on September 24 and 25, the traffic disruptions in midtown Manhattan will be truly epic, especially for the crosstown traffic that is usually backed up under normal circumstances. Again, the closures will begin well before the Pope arrives at specific locations. Read the details of all the street closures here.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is warning travelers to New York City to use mass transit during the papal visit. The agency is planning to lay on extra trains and buses into the city to handle the crowds, and it cautions that all the street closings “may result in traffic congestion and pedestrian diversions in various parts of the city.”
Amtrak is advising travelers that if they plan on traveling by rail to Philadelphia on September 26 or 27, they will need a reservation for all trains, noting that the Pope is expected to attract more than a million people to the City of Brotherly Love. The rail service will also be scheduling a number of extra trains to handle the crowds.
Even if you hope to do nothing more than drive through Philadelphia on a major interstate highway that weekend, you could be forced to reroute yourself. Major highway closings will include I-76, I-676 and US Route 1. Philadelphia has designated certain “traffic boxes” in Center City starting Friday evening. What does a traffic box mean? It means cars will be allowed to leave the area but not to enter it, and there will be no bus or trolley service within it. You can see all the Philadelphia details here. The city’s SEPTA regional rail and transit system will continue to operate that weekend, but trains will skip lots of stations when the Pope is in town.
NOTE: Be sure to click here to see all recent TravelSkills posts about: Surviving San Francisco + Photos: New United first class seat + Save money on calls from other countries + 6 secrets for snagging low fares
Do you follow us on Twitter? It’s a great way to keep up with the latest news!
Please join the 100,000+ people who read TravelSkills every month! Sign up here for one email-per-day updates!
No the UNGA is the week after the Pope’s visit. If you were looking at rates for this week, the reason they are so high is it’s NY Fashion Week. Welcome to NY in the fall/early winter!
That’s what it is! A few weeks ago I was just perusing rates at the Hotel I stayed at this past August (Holiday Inn- Lower East Side) and the rates were obscene. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why they were so high a whole week before the Pope’s visit. Thanks for finally solving that mystery.
And then the craziness continues in NYC for another week with the start
of the UN General Assembly. Dignitaries start arriving Saturday and
Sunday but the main assembly begins on Tuesday through Saturday! Frozen
zones throughout midtown/downtown when they are on the move between the
UN and their hotels! Most large 4* upwards hotels sold out or charging
$600+ per night
I don’t think it’s called Andrews Air Force Base any longer. It’s now Joint Base Andrews. I was in the Air Force stationed there when Pope John Paul II visited Washington DC. He arrived early in the evening, so I sneaked out of the barracks and ran over to the VIP reception building to catch a glimpse of him. And indeed I saw him briefly as he stepped off the plane and walked to his limousine. He smiled on us like a kindly grandfather as he passed by and even blessed us, as I recall.
In other words, the 80s visit to SF by Pope John Paul II was like buttah !
I was going to be in Philadelphia at the time of Pope Francis’ visit, but made a choice not to come due to other reasons, but would have stayed with a pal there who used to live in SF and is originally from Philadelphia. I made my first visit there six years ago, and loved it. Easy in, easy out. I would say, that no one should change plans, just plan smart in the arrival time to get to one’s destination, and avoid the Center City area. Yes, there is a huge security thing now in place because of the times we live in. Pope John Paul ll (now a cannonized Saint because of a miraculous intercession through him) came to San Francisco for his second visit, and first as Pope back in the 1980s. Mass was held at Candlestick Park…..no big whoop. But now, we have the huge problem of elements out there that our CIA and FBI and local Police are very much aware of, and need to employ the highest security. So, for just the hours Pope Francis is in Philadelphia in certain areas of the city, it will be heavily guarded. Same of course in NY and Washington.