Commute Westchester to Long Island? (Islip, Babylon: transfer, taxi, to live)

[newnewyorkers]

Hello all. We have lived in westchester for about six months now. My husband left his job to follow my career and has been exploring options in the tri state area. He has been interviewing with a Company in Long Island, specifically in the Union Dale area. Google maps says it would be a 40 mile drive, 70 minutes. He would only need to go there twice, maybe three times per week... It sounds like a wearing commute but given that it would only be 2x or 3x/wk it sounds doable. My questions to the wise people in this forum are:

1. Have you done a similar commute yourself? How long was it?
2. What are hours to avoid / better times to leave and come back to make it easier on him?
3. This is a car commute, right? Or is public transportation doable?
4. What else?
5. Is this a commute from hell or within the tristate "norm"?

Thank!

[ANM1982]

I used to live on Long Island and drive there frequently.

1) It takes me 1.5 hours to 2 hours to get from Ossining to Islip on days with light traffic. Never have tried rush hour, but passing one accident and not having an alternate route could easily move that to three hours. Uniondale is approximately 20 minutes closer.

2) From my experience, I have to leave no later than 6:00am if I don't want to hit heavy traffic. And leaving after 6:00pm is your best bet in avoiding traffic heading back toward Westchester.

3) Car commute. While I sometimes do take the train, it often requires multiple transfers (one train to GCT, two subway trains to Penn Station, and either one or two trains to Long Island, depending on if I have to change at Jamaica or Babylon... sometimes, I just pay the extra $8 to take a one-seat ride to Penn Station on Amtrak from Croton, which can also be done from a few stops on the New Haven line). Uniondale doesn't have its own LIRR station, so he'd have to take a taxi on top of that.

4) Get an EZPass if you don't have one, and a GPS program that will warn you of upcoming jams. If the Throgs Neck and Whitestone are both jammed, it's sometimes quicker to go through the city via the Third Avenue Bridge to the 59th Street Bridge. (Bonus: no tolls.)

5) Definitely not the norm and most would consider it hellish if you don't want to leave that early/late.

[newnewyorkers]

Thanks. This is very helpful. We would go from Ardsley to LI. So i think that, plus the fact that he would potentially go to Uniondale would shave around 30 minutes from those timings i'd hope. Its a good job. I hope it crystalizes.