Which are your favorite/least favorite NYC Close-in suburbs? (Jersey City: 2013, apartments)
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By this I mean places less than 45 min by car- to say Times Square maybe 1 hr or so by public transportation.
This includes, but isn't limited to, Hoboken, Englewood, Jersey City, Cliffside Park, Union City, West New York, Fort Lee, Fairview, Palasades Park, Ridgefield, Weehawken. Guttenberg, North Bergen, and maybe Leonia. Really not much further out than those.
Which are the easiest commutes?
Which are the least congested?
Which are the most economical?
What are your impressions of the places you've been to?
Thanks- I just haven't seen a recent thread that discussed the entire picture.
During rush hour, a 45-minute commute by car is tough from a lot of those towns. Your best bet is to use the Lincoln Tunnel, which takes you almost right into Times Square. So to answer your questions:
Which are the easiest commutes? Weehawken. That's where the tunnel is. If you live right by the mouth of the tunnel, I suppose you could drive a car to the tunnel, through the tunnel, and a couple of avenues over to Times Square in 45 minutes most days. Each tenth of a mile farther away adds to the commuting time.
Which are the least congested? Weehawken has the most traffic congestion (Lincoln Tunnel) as well as Fort Lee (GWB). The farther you get from those, the less congested it gets.
Most economical? Englewood and the less-desirable parts of JC would have the lowest housing costs, if that's what you mean.
What are my impressions? The towns you listed have a lot of similarities. Very urban, densely populated. Key differences might be the types of buildings/apartments available for rent or purchase, ethnic enclaves, etc. Downtown JC and Hoboken are more affluent than most of the other places listed. Downtown JC is also an outlier because it has much more highrise development than any other town listed.
Most people who live in these towns and work in NYC will use transit. It's faster, cheaper, less stressful most of the time. Driving into NYC, especially at rush hour, just isn't wise, IMO, especially when you have the types of transit options most of the towns you selected have (PATH, bus, jitney, ferry). And buses get their own express lane in the tunnel, which keeps them moving when cars are congesting the other lanes.
I lived in Union City for a couple of years to save money and I would never recommend it. Almost feels like a forgotten town. Grimey, not safe, big ordeal to get to any decent restaurants or stores (because there are none in union city and there are an astonishing number of red lights between union city and any destination), and still takes a while to get into port authority because of red lights/traffic/no access to bus lane in the Lincoln tunnel. Yuck.
These days I would only consider Leonia, Fort Lee, Edgewater, Weehawken, Hoboken or JC.
I've gotten to Midtown in a little over 20 minutes from West Orange. Of course not rush hour.
To some degree it depends on where you're going in NYC. If you're going to midtown, Weehawken is hard to beat; you've got buses and the ferry and you can drive if you like to suffer a lot. Note the ferry bus to Times Square is pretty slow because of traffic; a bus into Port Authority gets you much closer and is cheaper, though less pleasant.
I lived in Union City for a couple of years to save money and I would never recommend it. Almost feels like a forgotten town. Grimey, not safe, big ordeal to get to any decent restaurants or stores (because there are none in union city and there are an astonishing number of red lights between union city and any destination), and still takes a while to get into port authority because of red lights/traffic/no access to bus lane in the Lincoln tunnel. Yuck.
These days I would only consider Leonia, Fort Lee, Edgewater, Weehawken, Hoboken or JC.
The lights stay red? That is astonishing
Seriously though, how long has it been since you’ve lived here?
By this I mean places less than 45 min by car- to say Times Square maybe 1 hr or so by public transportation.
This includes, but isn't limited to, Hoboken, Englewood, Jersey City, Cliffside Park, Union City, West New York, Fort Lee, Fairview, Palasades Park, Ridgefield, Weehawken. Guttenberg, North Bergen, and maybe Leonia. Really not much further out than those.
Which are the easiest commutes?
Which are the least congested?
Which are the most economical?
What are your impressions of the places you've been to?
Thanks- I just haven't seen a recent thread that discussed the entire picture.
They're all pretty congested. These are cities and towns that were built out 50+ years ago because of their close proximity to the city. The people who lived there when they were actually suburbia are dead, and their children long ago moved deeper into NJ for larger lawns and houses.
A little more than fifty years ago, race riots drove the "white flight" out of the city and into the suburbs, and the population growth in northern New Jersey has not stopped since.
ETA: I've always had the impression that Leonia has more of a suburban feel, but I have not been through it in years.
Seriously though, how long has it been since you’ve lived here?
The lights don't have weight sensors or anything else to detect traffic. Even if there is no other traffic you sit through tons and tons of red lights waiting for non-existant side traffic to come through. Sounds funny, but wait till you spend 20 minutes trying to get to the nearest acceptable grocery store in Weehawken (which is still horrible).
Also reminds me of when they shut down one of two lanes of a local arterial access road for Lincoln tunnel for road repair for 6 months and deployed a team of like 2 construction dudes to do the work. Added an extra 15 minutes to my commute for 6 months. If you aggregated all the time that was wasted as a result of this move, it would be multiple human lives.
No one seems to care about this town or the people that live there. Really sucks to be lower middle class.
Moved out in 2013.
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