Race morning brings extensive road closures across Brooklyn and Manhattan, and NYRR — like most large-scale NYC races — is direct about it: plan to take the subway, not a car or a ride-share, to get to the start. This guide covers the general transportation logistics for getting to the Brooklyn start, moving around the city while the course is active, and getting back from the Central Park finish, based on how NYRR and city coverage have consistently described race-day access in recent years.

Getting to the Brooklyn start

The start area sits on Washington Avenue near the Brooklyn Museum, at the northern edge of Prospect Park, accessible via the 2, 3, and 4 subway lines, though the Eastern Parkway–Brooklyn Museum station itself was closed for the most recent edition, with runners routed by wave to the nearby Franklin Avenue or Grand Army Plaza stations. Runners who are checking a bag have historically been directed to a different nearby station than those who aren't, so it's worth checking the current year's exact instructions rather than assuming last year's routing still applies. Vehicle drop-off near the start has been limited to a specific, official location in recent years rather than open street access, and road closures around the start area begin hours before the first wave — arriving early, on foot from the subway, is the standard approach among experienced entrants rather than trying to time a car trip against the closures.

Getting around during road closures

Because the course threads through Brooklyn and then up Manhattan's east side before cutting across Midtown to Central Park, road closures affect a wide swath of both boroughs for several hours on race morning, with specific streets reopening on a rolling schedule as the last runners clear each section. The FDR Drive itself closes to vehicle traffic for the race, and Times Square closes to cars entirely — one of only two days a year that happens. If you need to cross the city while the race is active, whether you're running errands or trying to meet up with a runner, expect the subway to be more reliable than surface streets, and check the current year's official closure map for exact timing rather than guessing from the route alone.

Getting to and from the Central Park finish

The finish sits inside Central Park near the 72nd Street Transverse, with several subway lines converging nearby along Central Park West and around Columbus Circle at the park's southwest corner. Because the finish area involves a walk through security and bag-claim logistics before you're actually clear of the race footprint, budget extra time before heading to the subway, particularly if you're carrying a checked bag from the start. Spectators meeting a runner at the finish face similar crowding, and picking a specific, pre-agreed meeting point — rather than trying to find each other in the finish area itself — tends to work far better than improvising on the day.

A few practical notes

A few details are worth building into your morning regardless of which subway line you take: MTA service changes are common on race-day weekends generally, not just for this event, so checking planned service alerts the night before is worth the five minutes. Security screening at the start corrals adds time beyond a normal subway commute, so arriving earlier than you think you need to is safer than arriving right at your wave's cutoff. And because the finish and start are in different boroughs, don't assume you can retrieve a car or a ride-share quickly near either end until well after the course has fully reopened.