Is the NYC commute from x/y/z REALLY better?

[swilliamsny]

Originally Posted by Wrkmom

I am looking to potentially move to NJ and have found this forum very useful/informative. I am still wrapping my mind around the seal bid in Montclair, alas, it might be time for me to give up. I must say I am now terrified of NJT. As a single parent one of my greatest fear is being stuck in Manhattan while my kids are in another state. Granted they are getting older - soon to be 15 and 9. Appreciate all the advice/guidance on this forum.

Cheers!

Originally Posted by pippiep

My list is not getting any shorter. I'm now adding in Cranford, Westfield, Berkeley Heights, New Providence... I need to narrow it down in the next week, because then we'll be taking a trip to look at houses!

To Wrkmom, my concern over being in Manhattan should something happen to one of my kids is a significant reason I don't work in the city. (Husband is currently out of work, but has/will be working in the city as well.) Even though my "baby" is eleven now, there's too much that can go wrong. My 13 year old was very recently riding a neighbor's go cart and broke his thumb. Nothing life-threatening, and our neighbors would have been happy to take him to urgent care, but it's nice to know that within 15 minutes I could go pick him up.


Pippiep, we live in Berkeley Heights. My husband takes (took - this is still taking some getting used to) the Lakeland bus to Port Authority. His job was on 6th and 43rd, so he walked from there. It doesn't seem like Port Authority would be much better than Penn Station for you, but figured I'd pass along the info on Lakeland. Despite being in driving traffic, with the bus-only lanes his commute was not significantly longer than on the rare days he took NJT. One issue with that bus line, at least to Berkeley Heights, New Providence and Summit, is that the last bus is at 8 pm, so if you need to be in the city late, you'll have to find another way home. The average commute to work for him (bus only, not walking time), taking the 6:05 a.m. bus, was 55-60 minutes. The time coming home varied a bit more, from that same 55 minutes to about 75 minutes on the 5:30 p.m. bus. (The bus time table says 50 minutes. I think that happened about twice in the four years we've lived here.)


We're only a 2-3 minute drive from the train/bus, but you need to leave a buffer of about 5 minutes wait time, so add that to the commute as well. Lastly, in BH there's a 3+ year wait list for parking at the train station. The bus stops a block from the train, then again along Springfield Ave on the way to Summit, but there's no public parking that I know of outside the train station. Some people park in the grocery store lot, as far away from the store as possible. I have no idea if they are ever ticketed for it or not.


Outside of that, we love this town. Schools are very good. One son does have an IEP that helps him with time management and organization, but outside of that I don't have personal experience with special services. I can say that after being in the NYC public school system, then homeschooling that same son in NYC for two years, being in NJ is a dream. I fought for over a year to get an evaluation for him in the city, and finally gave up. Here, the entire process was completed within four weeks. I don't know if it would have taken longer if he needed more services, but I was happy with the response from the district.