Commute Manhattan to Florham Park? (Hoboken, Morristown: living in, cost, vs.)

[Le_Porcupine]

Your valuable insight/experiences/advice on the following commuting question is kindly requested:

My husband will be taking a job in Florham Park, NJ and we are trying to plan out where we will live. I will be working in NYC (midtown east).

Any idea how good/bad/ugly the commute to Florham Park NJ would be from Manhattan? I can see that it is about a 40 minute trip with no traffic.

Also, do any of you have any idea where in Manhattan we could live to make the commute more bearable ... for example, if we lived midtown west and he took the Lincoln tunnel vs. living downtown closer to the Holland tunnel ... I'm very familiar with NYC (but not NJ) so completely understand that either tunnel can be a nightmare at times due to traffic/accidents/etc., but if you are reverse commuting from NYC to NJ daily is one preferable over the other?

I realize NJ transit might also be an option, but he would need to take a shuttle bus from the Florham Park NJ train station and has heard from others that it is not a fun commute - so a driving commute would be preferred.

We are also considering Hoboken, but would like to live in the city.

Thanks!

[captne76]

My quick thoughts are almost no one wants to live full time in Manhattan with some exceptions, and also almost no one wants to drive in or out of Manhattan every day. Manhattan is quite a hassle to keep any car in, parking, traffic, extremely expensive tickets, river tolls are presently $13 a round trip NJ to NY and I think are supposed to go up to $15 soon.

In spite of that some people do it, but I've always felt better getting out of town each night.

[bradykp]

i have a coworker that commutes from manhattan to morristown. he comes in early though to avoid the major hassles and never leaves before 6.

living in hoboken won't help a ton, in my opinion. it will be just as painful getting out of hoboken so it won't save much on the FP commute and it will add 20-30 minutes to the commute to the NYC job.

where, exactly, in FP? because the commute will likely be 78 (right outside of the holland tunnel) to 24. at night it will be rough, morning shouldn't be horrible, but it's not gonna be great either. i'd figure an hour in the morning, and evenings i don't really know.

[captne76]

Then again some people do things like take a train from NYC to a train or PATH station in NJ where they park their car overnight so they can drive the "last mile" to work. You'd have to look up the closest train station to where in Florham Park then check a timetable, then add time in NYC getting from residence to the train or PATH, etc. PATH goes to mostly urbanized towns near NYC from about 6 underground PATH stations in Manhattan, NJ Transit does the trains.

That avoids the tunnel hassles of driving in/out of NY but adds the usual transit delays of getting to/from train stations, waiting for trains, etc. Buses to/from NYC are mostly all up at 42nd,41st Street PA Bus terminal except for some down to Wall St and Chinatown area but those are mostly the forward commute schedules.

[RhysNJ]

There is no train station in Florham Park. The closest ones (10 mins or so) are Madison and Convent Station. The Convent one is somewhat closer to some of the large companies that sprouted up on Park Avenue and near Morristown. Either way, I'd expect that 40 minutes to double on most days anywhere near rush hour. He would have to leave ridiculously early to avoid the worst of it. I just cannot imagine the cost or hassle of maintaining a car in Manhattan and trying to get to Morris County every day. I guess some people find ways to do it.

Rhys

[ScarletKnightJet]

I live in JC and commute to Morristown (not far from FP). I live walking distance from the tunnel.

It can be anywhere from 40 minutes (this morning) to an 1hr 15 (last night).