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Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

citylab.com

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Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#31

Post by forrestthewoods »

bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

"best public transporation" for New York City? Bah. I categorically reject the notion that any city which has the longest commute times in the entire country as having a good transportation system [1].

I had a friend who was born and raised in the New York City area. I couldn't tell you what borough specifically. He was used to that insane commute. Wake up early, ride the train(s) for 90 minutes, work, ride them for 90 minutes home, have dinner, and go to bed. This is what he considered normal. When he moved to a city that doesn't have a broken transportation system and his daily commute time went from 3 hours to 30 mintues he said "Wow. So this is what it's like to be alive! I didn't realize this is what being an actual person was like".

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/new-yorkers-havelongest-...

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#32

Post by santaclaus »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #31
bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

"best public transporation" for New York City? Bah. I categorically reject the notion that any city which has the longest commute times in the entire country as having a good transportation system [1]. I had a friend who was born and raised in the New York City area. I couldn't tell you what borough specifically. He was used to that insane commute. Wake up early, ride the train(s) for 90 minutes, work, ride them for…

While NYC definitely has nice public transit coverage, parts of the city are kind of a mess (cough cough G train cough cough). Hell, even travelling from Astoria to upper Manhattan can be a mess, or crosstown, or whatever. I def had a shorter commute from San Jose to Mountain View than I did within NYC. That said, if you are wealthy enough to live in Manhattan or off one of the nice train lines in Brooklyn, life can be pretty good.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#33

Post by [deleted] »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17
grandalf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC isn't there yet, but there are so many intrinsic advantages it's just a matter of time. The biggest impediment is cultural. Most of the tech talent is very cautious and by the book. However this is changing. NYC Papers We Love is a great example of what the future holds... As is clojure.

NYC will get there when they move the city to the west coast. There is something different about the west: wide open spaces, mountains, good weather, that you can't really replicate in the east.

[deleted]

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#34

Post by bronbron »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #31
bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

"best public transporation" for New York City? Bah. I categorically reject the notion that any city which has the longest commute times in the entire country as having a good transportation system [1]. I had a friend who was born and raised in the New York City area. I couldn't tell you what borough specifically. He was used to that insane commute. Wake up early, ride the train(s) for 90 minutes, work, ride them for…

> I categorically reject the notion that any city which has the longest commute times in the entire country as having a good transportation system

By how much? What's the variance like compared to other cities? Are we comparing NYC commute times to cities that don't have public transportation systems used en masse? If I live in Houston and drive 15 minutes to work, is it really fair to compare it to spending 30 minutes on a subway?

"Average commute time" isn't extremely relevant if we're including cities where most people don't commute by public transportation, given the subject of the article.

> I had a friend who was born and raised in the New York City area...

I spend 15 minutes commuting to work each day in NYC, compared to 45 when I was in SF. Based on that fact, I can conclusively say that SF's transportation system is 3x worse than NYC's based on my personal anecdote.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#35

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Bahamut wrote: post #20
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC will get there when they move the city to the west coast. There is something different about the west: wide open spaces, mountains, good weather, that you can't really replicate in the east.

The New York night life cannot be beaten in the US for many reasons. The sheer volume of people also means that people have a good chance of having good ties to NYC even when never having lived there. Love the weather out here in the Bay Area, but there is a part of me that will always miss NYC and the whole tri-state area (well, minus Long Island anyhow ;) ) - hell, the whole east coast in general.

Many are either east coast persons or west coast persons. I know many easterners who hate living on the west coast, and vice versa. The question should really be: are many techies living on the west coast willing to become east coasters? I know many aren't native west coasters, but I still think a lot of them just like living on the west coast.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#36

Post by seanmcdirmid »

[deleted] wrote: post #33
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC will get there when they move the city to the west coast. There is something different about the west: wide open spaces, mountains, good weather, that you can't really replicate in the east.

[deleted]

So does living in NYC...let's not kid ourselves about that either.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#37

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jpatokal wrote: post #22
techsupporter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and King County Metro is just a shit show in general. Ah, yes, I was wondering if I was going to read this here. In the same sentence that you give BART a pass for stopping at midnight and not going "everywhere," Metro gets written off completely. Even thought it has a 5am to 1am span of service, 14 night owl routes, daily express service from as far out as North (freakin') Bend, and is the most-used mode of transp…

Sorry, any public transport system that relies on buses as the backbone will be a "shit show". Buses are uncomfortable, slow, unreliable, get stuck in traffic, etc etc. "Bus rapid transit", dedicated lanes and so on ease the pain a bit, but at the end of day, they just can't compete with any service that has fully dedicated right of way.

As for bus rapid transit, I found the new West Seattle service to be quite fast and efficient (although West Seattle was already pretty accessible before).

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#38

Post by rayiner »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #31
bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

"best public transporation" for New York City? Bah. I categorically reject the notion that any city which has the longest commute times in the entire country as having a good transportation system [1]. I had a friend who was born and raised in the New York City area. I couldn't tell you what borough specifically. He was used to that insane commute. Wake up early, ride the train(s) for 90 minutes, work, ride them for…

I question if you can spend 90 min on a train in New York. It's only like 50 min to Connecticut on the metro north.

Also, my commute these days is about an hour and 20 min each way. 45 min Amtrak, 20 min walking, 15 min metro. Way preferable to a 30-40 min car commute.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#39

Post by forrestthewoods »

bronbron wrote: post #34
forrestthewoods wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"best public transporation" for New York City? Bah. I categorically reject the notion that any city which has the longest commute times in the entire country as having a good transportation system [1]. I had a friend who was born and raised in the New York City area. I couldn't tell you what borough specifically. He was used to that insane commute. Wake up early, ride the train(s) for 90 minutes, work, ride them for…

> I categorically reject the notion that any city which has the longest commute times in the entire country as having a good transportation system By how much? What's the variance like compared to other cities? Are we comparing NYC commute times to cities that don't have public transportation systems used en masse? If I live in Houston and drive 15 minutes to work, is it really fair to compare it to spending 30 minut…

...what? It's highly objective that New York has the worst commute times in the country. I shared one link on it. There are countless more. Here's another that has more numbers for other cities. http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst//longest... If you object to their methodology

31.5% of NYC workers have a commute time longer than 60 minutes. That's insane.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#40

Post by seanmcdirmid »

techsupporter wrote: post #28
jpatokal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, any public transport system that relies on buses as the backbone will be a "shit show". Buses are uncomfortable, slow, unreliable, get stuck in traffic, etc etc. "Bus rapid transit", dedicated lanes and so on ease the pain a bit, but at the end of day, they just can't compete with any service that has fully dedicated right of way.

Unless you've dug a subway, how do you get people to the rail lines? Park and rides? All that does is encourage suburban sprawl to drive to a rail station. There's no reason for buses to be uncomfortable and unreliable beyond popular perception. I've ridden trains in Dallas that have worse onboard conditions than bus routes in Seattle.

Seattle buses are immensely more comfortable than the subway we have in Beijing (but then dammit, I just take a taxi).
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