Can someone please tell me the most efficient way to get from hoboken rail terminal to 46th & Lex? I’ve mapped out a few ways to get there just from mta.com, but I’d like some feeback from those who actually walk the beat. I’m moving there from downtown in a month. Thanks.

Must be commuter week with all the press. That’s because school starts next week and vacations end. It’s going to get ugly out there.

———————–

WASHINGTON (AP) — It might be hard for some drivers to believe, but average commuting times are getting shorter for U.S. workers.

The average daily commute to work has shrunk from 25.5 minutes in 2000 to 25.1 minutes last year, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau.

“We all should hold a celebration,” said Alan Pisarski, author of “Commuting in America.” “We’re saving 0.4 minutes!”

That’s 0.4 minutes each way, for a total of 48 seconds a day.

But not everyone’s buying it.

“Even with these numbers, we swear up and down that we are spending more time in our cars,” said John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic in Washington.

“We are spending at least an hour a day in our cars in the Washington area,” Townsend said. “We spend more time stuck in traffic and commuting (each year) than we spend on vacation.”

The numbers are surprising because many of the nation’s fastest-growing communities are in the outer suburbs, miles from central cities. The shorter commuting times could be a sign that jobs are following the workers, Pisarski said.

For example, the nation’s longest commute, at 39.6 minutes, is in the Vineland, New Jersey, metropolitan area, about 40 miles south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Vineland, a community of 56,000 people in southern New Jersey, was part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area in 2000. It became its own metropolitan area, along with the New Jersey cities of Millville and Bridgeton, because fewer workers are commuting into Philadelphia.

The New York area had the second-longest commute, at 34.2 minutes, and the Washington area was third at 33.4 minutes. Commuters in both New York and Washington saw their commutes get slightly longer from 2000 to 2005.

The Los Angeles, California, area, which is notorious for its traffic, came in 16th, at 28.4 minutes. That’s shorter than the commute in Riverside, California, which has been siphoning residents from Los Angeles for years.

“Overall, congestion isn’t a problem for everyone,” said Mantill Williams, a spokesman for AAA’s national office. “But there are specific pockets of pain. There are specific areas where it has gotten worse.”

Among the findings from the Census Bureau:

?The share of people driving alone to work increased from 75.7 percent in 2000 to 77 percent last year.

?The share of people carpooling to work dropped from 12.2 percent in 2000 to 10.7 percent last year.

?The share of people using mass transit stayed the same at 4.7 percent.

?The share of people walking to work dropped from 2.9 percent in 2000 to 2.5 percent last year.

?The share of people working at home increased from 3.3 percent in 2000 to 3.6 percent last year.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

From NJ.com -

Getting sick of long rides on the train

Study: Commuting stress may worsen health woes

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

BY JUDY PEET

Star-Ledger Staff

For years, the prevailing New Jersey commuter philosophy has been: When the driving gets tough, the tough get a railpass.

But commuting by train is also stressful, according to a new study that found the longer the rail commute, the higher the strain. With every passing mile, there is an impact not only on physical and psychological well-being, but also on the ability to complete simple tasks, the study concluded.

“We’ve known for a long time that there is a correlation between stress of driving in congested commuter traffic and heart” attacks, said Richard Wener, a professor of environmental psychology at Polytechnic University and one of the study’s authors.

“With this study, we are suggesting that the stress of long train commutes may pose a similar health problem,” added Wener, who commutes by train every day from his Maplewood home to his classes in Brooklyn. “Trains are not as stressful as cars at rush hour, but even a relatively minor stressor, several hours a day, every day of the year, can build to a health risk.”

New Jersey commuters were studied because rail commuting here is “worse than in most places,” Wener said. The expansion of suburbia here also means the average rail commute is getting longer and longer.

Sitting on the train last night, returning from a hard day in Manhattan, few commuters were surprised at the study results.

“Of course the ride is stressful; everybody is pretty much in a daze after they get off the train,” said accounting firm manager Mike D’Angelo, whose commute between Denville and Manhattan takes about 70 minutes. “If I could afford to move closer, like to Summit, of course I would.”

Food buyer Joseph Cammarta, who commutes to New York from Dover, complained that the seats are too tight and passengers are jammed between bags, but added that the real bother “is cell phones. That’s where the stress comes in.”

The researchers studied 208 commuters taking trains from New Jersey to Manhattan on the Midtown Direct line. The subjects, who ranged in age from 25 to 60, commuted at least three days a week and had been on the same route for at least 12 months.

The trips ranged from 59 minutes, door-to-door, to 104 minutes.

The participants were about evenly split between men and women, but of similar education and socio-economic backgrounds. Eighty percent were college graduates, and the median income approached $100,000.

Wener and Gary Evans, a professor of environmental analysis at Cornell University, used several methods to evaluate stress levels.

The commuters’ saliva was tested for the stress hormone cortisol at the end of the commute, and, for comparison, during a weekend at home. The commuters and their spouses also filled out questionnaires rating their stress levels, and the riders were asked to proofread a simple office memo at the end of a long commute.

The study found that average cortisol levels rose in direct proportion to the length of time on the train. People who had a 100-minute commute had, on average, more than three times the cortisol levels of people who had only a 60-minute commute.

The ability to pick up errors proofreading declined in a similar pattern, the researchers found. Self-reporting responses supported the increased frustration and irritability of the long commute.

“Ethnicity, profession and gender didn’t seem to matter, although mothers with children at home had the highest stress levels,” Wener said, adding that the study sponsored by NJ Transit did not take into account factors such as train conditions, seat locations or train changes.

Wener said the potential impact on work productivity following a long commute “should be of concern to employers and infrastructure planners.”

New Jerseyans are tough, however, and a number of passengers polled by The Star-Ledger simply shrugged and agreed with Larry Sobol, a financial adviser from Morristown, who said: “Deal with it.”

That does not mean they don’t have suggestions. The overwhelming favorite was to take out the middle seat. People would rather stand than sit there.

Other rider suggestions included more cars, more space, electric hookups and wireless Internet connections on the cars, better lighting, club cars and better notification of train delays at the stations.

NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said the agency is making several improvements that passengers have requested.

He noted 234 new cars are expected to go on line beginning later this year, with better amenities, better lighting and, best of all, no third seat.

Critics noted, however, there will not be enough new, amenity-filled trains, and most riders will still be forced to use the old, crowded cars. They said the pace of improvement is too slow and it will be up to commuters to manage their stress.

Staff writer Rohina Phadnis contributed to this report.

? 2006 The Star Ledger

? 2006 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

Yesterday it was “due to a police investigation at 34th and 6th”, the train got rerouted to 8th Ave. Today, “All V trains are suspended.” When it rains? ‘No V service.” WTF?

This sucks because the train runs right under my building at Madison Ave and is the most convenient, especially in the heat and cold when I don’t want to hike it to the 6.

Talking to my friends around the Washington DC metro area, commuting is quite a challenge this week…by car or by train.

My one friend said she was sitting on the Metro train for god knows how long trying to get into DC yesterday. A few of the stations near the Potomac flooded. They pumped them out just in time for them get partially flooded last night.

Another friend was trying to get to Alexandria, Virginia yesterday morning via 495, only to find the road completely closed. A section of the road got buried in a mudslide. When was the last time you heard of mudslides around DC?

My cousin over near University of Maryland in College Park said a neighborhood near him had to be evacuated because people’s houses were flooding.

I just hope I don’t need a boat to get home later…

Need help commuting. As much of a “Joisi Girl” that I am, I have no clue how to get around in NY by subway. Could someone please tell me the easiest and fastest way to travel between Penn Station NY and Grand Central Station without getting lost somewhere in Brooklyn. I know my feet could always get me there in nice weather. But what about the subway? How much would that ride cost, anyway? and how long would the travel time be? thanks?

Sure based on this title I bet everyone is just waiting to jump all over me for being a sarcastic asshole, but this time I’m being serious. I’ve thought about this for a while and today I decided to write about it.

Navigating the streets of Manhattan, especially during commuting periods, is an overcrowded mess. It always amazes me when I see a blind person walking freely in the middle of it all. Even more astonishing to me is when I’m waiting for a subway and I see a blind person coming through the turn-style. Sighted people have a hard time figuring out how to swipe a metrocard, imagine doing this when you are blind after walking down the stairs to the subway, figuring out which direction you need to go and actually getting on a train. Then doing the reverse.

My hats (I’m really not wearing one at work…shhh) off to blind people.