Journal Square Transportation Center

The transportation center is built over a cut through Bergen Hill. The Bergen Hill cut was originally excavated in 1834, 1838 by the New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company, later part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), to access the Hudson River waterfront. Passenger trains traveled to what became Exchange Place, while freight trains on the Harsimus Branch continued to the Harsimus Stem Embankment.

The center began as the Summit Avenue station of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (H&M), forerunner of PATH. The stop at Summit Avenue, located between Grove Street and Manhattan Transfer stations, opened on April 14, 1912, as an infill station. At the time, only one platform, an island platform in the center of the station, was in use. The Summit Avenue station was not complete until February 23, 1913, when two outer side platforms in a Spanish solution opened, and an enclosed mezzanine opened. At the time, passengers traveling on the 33rd Street line alighted and boarded on the outer side platforms, while passengers traveling on the Newark-Hudson Terminal line alighted and boarded on the center island platform. A bypass track for eastbound express trains was located to the south of the eastbound side platform.

The district was renamed Journal Square on January 1, 1925, after the newspaper, The Jersey Journal. Around that time, the Summit Avenue station was renovated and also rededicated as "Journal Square". The open-spandrel concrete arch bridge carrying Kennedy Boulevard and the station, built in 1926, is a pared-down version of a more ambitious elevated plaza scheme proposed by consulting engineer Abraham Burton Cohen. Passageways were suspended from the arches to connect the railroad station to bus stops on the bridge deck above (the bus stops were later removed). The storage yards northeast of the station were also expanded. The number of tracks in the station was increased from three to six to accommodate terminating trains from 33rd Street, as well as both local and express trains from Newark. There were two island platforms serving the station's four inner tracks, allowing cross-platform interchanges between Newark, Hudson Terminal and Journal Square, 33rd Street trains, and bypass tracks for express trains that went around the four inner tracks. The Journal Square station was rededicated on June 1, 1929.

In 1962, the Port Authority bought the H&M and reorganized it as PATH. Reconstruction of the station began in 1968. Though the cornerstone was installed on September 20, 1972, the transportation center itself was opened in stages in 1973, 1974, and 1975 during the late phases of the Brutalist architecture movement. The renovated station was dedicated on October 17, 1975. A statue of Jackie Robinson was dedicated at the center in 1998.

Part of the ceiling at Journal Square fell onto the platform during the rush hour on August 8, 1983, killing two and injuring eight. The ceiling slab, a false ceiling that had been installed during the renovation ten years prior, had been observed to be sagging as early as that April.

PATH began testing out a new contactless payment system called TAPP, similar to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's OMNY system, at Journal Square and 33rd Street in December 2023.

Rapid transit service

The PATH station is the southern terminus of two PATH lines, Journal Square-33rd Street on weekdays and Journal Square-33rd Street (via Hoboken) lines on weekends, late nights, and holidays. It is also a stop on the Newark-World Trade Center line. The station also serves as PATH's administrative headquarters.

At the platform level, the inside express tracks are typically used by trains on the Journal Square-33rd Street and Journal Square-33rd Street (via Hoboken) lines, while the outside local tracks are used by trains on the Newark-World Trade Center line.

Bus

Journal Square is one of three major terminals for New Jersey Transit buses to and from Jersey City, the others being Exchange Place and Hoboken Terminal. Buses operated by NJ Transit and private enterprises run to and from points throughout Hudson County and to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. There is also service to Newark, Hackensack, the Jersey Shore, and Atlantic City. Bus arrivals and departures use platforms accessible from within the station or via Pavonia or Sip Avenues.

The Loew's Jersey Theatre, the Stanley Theater, Hudson County Community College, Journal Squared, One Journal Square, 26 Journal Square, Hudson County Courthouse, and Hudson County Administration Building are in the immediate vicinity. Nearby are the neighborhoods Bergen Square, India Square, Marion Section, Five Corners, the Hilltop, and McGinley Square, site of Beacon and Saint Peter's College.