Most New York City residents do not lack for access to some form of public transit. And advocates are always extolling the virtues of subway, bus, rail or ferry over sitting — and stewing — in gridlock inside a car.
But while public transit might be preferable when it comes to controlling stress, driving is still the fastest way to get to and from work. At least that’s what a recent Census Bureau survey found.
The mean travel time for public transportation riders was more than 47 minutes, compared with under 32 minutes for people who drove themselves and 37 minutes for people who car-pooled. One-third of mass transit riders spent an hour or more commuting, according to the 2011 American Community Survey released by the census this month.
Driving has been a quicker way to get to work for New Yorkers than public transit for several years.
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4 Responses
I concur with this study. When I take the carpool lane to work to manhattan it can get me there twice as fast than by subway. Finding parking is the main problem once getting there though.
This is one of the times I agree with the NY Times. Lately the buses just don’t come and the trains are definitely taking longer than they used to.
Bad statistics. The NYT has updated the article to correct this, and explicitly admits that “This is not to say that a given New Yorker’s commute would be faster by car than by mass transit. The survey was not a comparison of point-to-point times by different methods. It found only that commuters who drove got to their destinations faster than mass-transit users got to their destinations, wherever their start and end points might be.”
Such a survey is meaningless since one’s commute is a function of where on lives and where one works.
If you live in Brooklyn and commute to mid-town Manhattan, and are required to work such that you commute during rush hour, it is highly unlike driving is cheaper or faster.
If you live in New York and commute to Chicago, driving is probably much closer than flying. If you commute from mid-town Manhattan toa job in downtown DC, Amtrak is probably faster than flying or driving.
If you live or work someplace not connected by a rapid transit line, driving will always be faster unless distance is a real problem. If you work odd hours, driving will almost be better since people who work odd hours don’t have rush traffic or daytime parking issues.