New Yorkers using public transit have longest commute, report says
Commuters board a train at the Hicksville LIRR station this past May. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
A new report from a transit technology company confirms what many Long Island Rail Road riders have long known: Americans’ commutes don’t get much worse than they do here.
The 2022 Global Public Transport Report, published by app developer Moovit, gathered data from 10 major metropolitan regions in the United States and found that this year the average transit commute in the New York metropolitan area took 58 minutes — longer than any other city studied in the report.
That’s up from 54 minutes in 2020, the last time Moovit published the study. That year, Miami had the longest commute, averaging 58 minutes. Moovit officials noted that they expanded the New York Metro area in this year's report to include portions of Connecticut.
Danny Pearlstein, spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a nonprofit transit advocacy, said the report provides more evidence of why Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA should make increasing transit frequency a priority.
“That’s probably the single quickest and easiest fix for coming in first in a contest we don’t want to win,” Pearlstein said. “More frequent service would make transit more seamless, and help it compete with other was of getting around, which, incidentally, would cut drive times.”
Washington, D.C., and Chicago tied for second-longest commutes this year, averaging 57 minutes. Pittsburgh commuters have the shortest average travel times, at 45 minutes.
Other regions included in the study were Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue.
Moovit said it analyzed data compiled from “tens of millions of trip requests” by app users, and also considered “user research in 99 cities across 24 countries.”
New York also ranked first in the nation among the percentage of commuters traveling between one and two hours to get to work, including time spent walking and waiting for a train or bus. About 28% of New York commuters had such “medium duration” commutes. Only about 8% of New York commuters traveled more than two hours, and 26% traveled 30 minutes or less, according to the report.
While New Yorkers, on average, have the longest commutes, the majority of that time is spent on the move, according to the report. It found that the average time spent waiting for a bus or train in New York in 2022 was 15 minutes. That’s up from 13 minutes in 2020, but still the shortest of any of the cities studied. Miami commuters spent the most time waiting, at 21 minutes.
About 67% of New York transit commuters make at least one transfer during their trip, according to the report.
Although the report provides some evidence of a worsening commute in the metro area, there have been other signs that things have been getting better for LIRR riders. Through October, the LIRR’s on-time performance was around 96% — on pace to tie the railroad’s modern record, set last year of 96%. The railroad is carrying, on average, about 65% of its pre-pandemic ridership.
As bad as New Yorkers have it, commuters in other parts of the world have it much worse, according to the report, which found that “the world’s longest average commute is endured in Istanbul with a whopping 77 minutes.”
Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.
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