Living in New York City costs a small fortune, and this is why we’ve prepared this list of 6 easiest towns to commute to NYC.
Between rent, bills, groceries, transportation and other expenses – you’ll find your available income diminish rapidly in the Big Apple. So, you have decided to move away from majestic concrete jungle called New York and are looking to settle in a nice, little, quiet neighborhood a few miles (or a few tens of miles) from Manhattan. You’ll have to wave goodbye to many great things including picnics in Central Park, off-Broadway shows, strolls through West Village, burgers, bagels and pizzas on almost every corner – you name it. Speaking of pizza, check out this most expensive pizza in New York City list.
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So, what one gets by moving to suburbs? Lower rents for starters. Median 1-bed apartment rent in New York is as high as $3,190 while 2-bed flats cost $3,980 per month on average. This works for a radius of 10 miles around downtown. Needless to say; the closer you are to the epicenter – the higher the rent will be (disregarding the neighborhood price differences). While living costs might differ in and out of the big city depending on your habits, they are largely the same. Basically, it all comes down to a trade; much lower rents for free time spent on commuting.
Apart from lower rents, people in suburbs enjoy different scenery – less noise, crowd, and pollution in almost every single one of 500 or so townships gravitating towards New York. Some of them are better in one category while others are better in another and most important categories when choosing the place of one’s living are commuting time, rent prices (including costs of living) and other personal preferences like the school system, grocery store availability and similar amenities.
We’ll tend to include all these criteria in our results, but lower commuting time and easiest transfer from home to work (in New York) will have to be given an advantage. After all, this is a list of 6 easiest towns to commute to NYC – not a list of 6 best or most affordable towns to commute to Big Apple. Furthermore, New York City stretches across quite a tremendous surface – so extensive in fact that distant parts of the city are much more affordable than Manhattan. However, we’ll only look beyond New York’s traditional 5 boroughs which disqualify neighborhoods like Ditmas Park in Brooklyn, St. George in Staten Island, Sunnyside in Queens and Hudson Heights beyond Upper Manhattan, which are all nice solutions if the subway is your intended commuting partner.
So, only towns and townships beyond the hazy New York borders will be considered. This actually means that only towns along the lines of Metro-North Railroad, New Jersey Transit and Long Island Rail Road are being considered. Of course, you can also take one of many buses to Port Authority or even drive to work yourself, but that doesn’t drastically change the inevitable commuting time losses. In fact, traffic can significantly increase your commuting time, especially during rush hours and on bad days. There, however, are some towns not that well-connected via railroads where bus lines are your best bet. Note also that apartment prices are gradually higher closer to train stations. All in all, there are way too many things to consider when choosing your perfect burb home and this list will be most relevant to those trying to cut their commuting times to a minimum, and even pay a little bit more than they would have in distant suburbs with commuting times upward of one hour. Still, even if directly on the Jersey waterfront opposite Manhattan – rents will be considerably lower than in the city itself.
We have decided to exclude the Jersey waterfront from consideration as it’s basically 10 to 15 minutes from Manhattan via PATH train or ferry. In other words, don’t be surprised if townships, towns, and cities like Weehawken, Hoboken, Jersey City, West New York and Guttenberg don’t appear on our list. They are much closer to Manhattan than most of the neighborhoods in remaining four of New York’s boroughs. Easiest towns to commute to New York City will offer a variety of transportation means and easy commute schedule without transfers. We are aware that commuting times depend on many factors, and we can only consider the bare minimum required from suburb to one of New York’s major terminals like Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York Penn Station or World Trade Center PATH station. The rest is up to you and depends on both where your workplace and home are located.
