Yes. Since September, the Binghamton weekend bus has dropped riders directly in Middletown, Nanuet, Fresh Meadows in Queens and Melville on Long Island, so a trip home no longer has to pass through Manhattan first. OurBus built the stops around where students’ families actually live. The catch is timing: the earliest of these buses leaves at 10:10 AM, hours after the first run to Manhattan.
What changed on the Binghamton weekend run?
On Thursday, September 3, 2026, OurBus began selling direct weekend seats from Binghamton to four suburban stops instead of routing everyone to the West Side of Manhattan. Three newsrooms covered the change within a month: Binghamton’s WBNG, Cornell’s Daily Sun, and Binghamton University’s own Pipe Dream. Not one of them published a fare or a departure time, which is what the rest of this page is for.
The stops were not picked off a map. Co-founder Axel Hellman told Pipe Dream that the company asked parents and checked where its own break traffic already went. He described the service to WBNG as “mainly designed for students traveling home on the weekends, but anyone is welcome to use it.” The same expansion reshaped the Ithaca corridor: the Daily Sun reported that the weekend trips now chain Ithaca and Cortland into the same string of downstate stops, alongside the all-week bus from Ithaca to NYC. WBNG reported the bigger change, that the new schedule restores a direct Binghamton-to-Long Island option offered before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Families “value the convenience of a pickup that doesn’t require going to Manhattan.”
— Axel Hellman, OurBus co-founder, to Pipe Dream
One detail in the Pipe Dream piece deserves repeating: OurBus has begun timing some trips around sunset for students observing Jewish holidays.
Which drop-off is closest to home?
We read all seven route pages on October 5, 2026 and pulled the published starting fares and departure windows into one grid, because no single route page shows you the choice side by side. These are the numbers that should decide which page you book.
| Where it drops you | Fare from | Distance | Each way | Departures out of Binghamton |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York City | $18 | 175 mi | 3–3.5 hrs | 4:20 AM – 7:30 PM, 9–10 a day |
| Middletown, Exit 122 Park & Ride | $50 | 94.6 mi | 1 hr 50 min – 2 hrs | 5:45 PM and 6:00 PM only |
| Nanuet, Exit 14 Park & Ride | $55 | 121.6 mi | 2 hrs 30 min – 2 hrs 40 min | 10:10 AM – 6:05 PM |
| Queens: Fresh Meadows, Flushing, Kew Gardens | $60 | 147.1 mi | 3 hrs 50 min – 4 hrs 40 min | 10:10 AM – 6:30 PM |
| Melville, LIE Exit 49 Park & Ride | $80 | 160.7 mi | 4 hrs 30 min – 5 hrs 10 min | 10:10 AM – 6:05 PM |
A park-and-ride stop is a highway-exit lot where a bus pulls in and a car can wait, which is why three of the four new drops are lots rather than curbs. If someone is collecting you, that is the difference between a parent circling a Manhattan block and a parent parked at the exit they already use. Middletown is the outlier: it is the shortest trip on the list and the only one with no daytime option, so it works for a Friday evening and nothing else.
Why do these buses leave so late in the day?
Because the two directions give it away. Every suburban route page we read listed the southbound trips resuming Thursday, October 8, while both return pages, Nanuet back to Binghamton and Queens back to Binghamton, listed Sunday, October 11. Out on a Thursday, home on a Sunday.
A departure window is the gap between a route’s first and last bus of the day. Not one of the four suburban runs leaves Binghamton before 10:10 AM, while the all-week corridor into New York City starts rolling at 4:20 AM and goes 9 to 10 times a day. Coming back, we found Nanuet offering a 1:40 PM to 4:20 PM band and Queens a wider 1:00 PM to 6:55 PM window. Both land you on campus on a Sunday evening. So plan a suburban trip as a round trip in one sitting, not as a bus you catch. Every page also carries the line “additional demand-based trips may be added,” which means a long weekend looks nothing like a normal Saturday.
Is a direct trip worth more than the $18 fare to Manhattan?
It depends on where home is, not on anything about the bus. These trips are priced as their own product, and what the extra money buys is the removal of a leg: no walk across Midtown with a duffel bag, no second ticket, no connection to miss. Is an extra $37 worth that on the Nanuet run, for instance? If a parent is meeting you at the exit, usually yes. The $18 fare to Manhattan is still the cheapest seat out of Binghamton, and nothing here changes that.
Book the Manhattan fare if your family is in the city, or if one transfer suits you and you want the widest choice of times. Nine or ten departures a day beats a two-bus evening window on Middletown.
Book the direct suburban trip if home is in Rockland, Orange County, eastern Queens or western Suffolk. Those are the trips where the old journey meant a bus, a subway and then a commuter rail leg, and where a Friday arrival could turn into a Friday night. We measured the suburban drops against the published distances, and one row looks strange at first: Melville is about 14 miles closer to Binghamton than Manhattan is, yet it starts at $80 against $18. The Manhattan corridor spreads its seats across 9 to 10 buses a day, while a suburban drop is a single multi-stop weekend run into a park-and-ride, on the thinner demand Hellman described.
Worth knowing either way: starting fares on routes that have just resumed move around, and OurBus prices seats by demand, which is why OurBus fares change between the day you look and the day you book. Check the page, not this table, on the morning you buy.
Where do you board on the Binghamton end?
We found the same two pickup points on all four suburban route pages: the Greater Binghamton Bus Terminal at Gate 13, and a stop beside the Binghamton University campus near the baseball field. The campus option matters if you are carrying a semester’s worth of laundry, for example, while the terminal matters if you live off campus in the city. The university’s own bus travel page lists the same site as the Greater Binghamton Transportation Center at 81 Chenango Street. For the exact shelter, read the route page, and treat your booking confirmation as the authority on the day. If the stop printed there is not the one you expected, contact OurBus support before travel day.
If a whole club, team or house is heading to the same place on the same weekend, a published timetable stops being what you plan around. OurBus Charters fits that better. You get group transportation services that run on your own departure time.
What comes after the suburbs?
A westward extension, if it happens. Hellman told WBNG the company is “exploring extending the route, which continues from Binghamton West to Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo,” and is “considering extending that all the way to Toronto.” Should you plan a winter trip around it? Not yet, because nothing is on sale. The break network is a different animal from the weekend one and already much larger. A break-special route is a trip that runs only during a university break week, and Hellman put the Binghamton count at roughly ten of them, because a single break empties a campus of thousands of students at once. Weekend travel, in his words, is “still an important travel need,” even if demand there is thinner than a break week’s.
FAQ
Can you get from Binghamton to Long Island without changing in Manhattan?
Yes. The Binghamton to Melville trip runs direct to the LIE Exit 49 park-and-ride, 160.7 miles in 4 hours 30 minutes to 5 hours 10 minutes, with no Manhattan leg.
What time does the weekend bus leave Binghamton?
Between 10:10 AM and roughly 6:05 to 6:30 PM depending on the destination. Middletown is the exception, with only a 5:45 PM and a 6:00 PM departure.
Is there an OurBus stop on the Binghamton University campus?
Yes. The new suburban routes list a pickup beside the campus near the baseball field, alongside Gate 13 at the Greater Binghamton Bus Terminal. Check the route page for the exact shelter and confirm it on your booking.
Which new stop is cheapest?
Middletown at $50 is the lowest of the four suburban fares and the shortest ride at 94.6 miles. The $18 fare to New York City remains the cheapest seat out of Binghamton.
Do these buses run during the week?
Only around the weekend. Southbound service resumes on a Thursday and returns run on a Sunday, with extra demand-based trips on busier weekends. Binghamton to NYC is the corridor that runs every day.
Book your weekend trip
Pick your drop-off first, then the time. Check OurBus fares on the bus from Binghamton to NYC page for the all-week corridor. If a direct drop gets you closer to the door, the weekend bus to Nanuet, the Queens run and the Melville run each have their own booking page.
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