[Jularc]

The Big Commute, in Reverse


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/24/nyregion/24rcommuting-600.jpg
Matthew Davis, who lives in Brooklyn, riding the Long Island Rail Road train that he boarded in Jamaica on
his way to his job in Ronkonkoma at a financial services management company.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/24/nyregion/24rcommuting.1-650.jpg
Mr. Davis begins his commute at the Prospect Avenue subway station.


By FORD FESSENDEN
Published: February 24, 2008

ON most days, Matthew Davis, a 28-year-old portfolio manager, can count on spending about two hours getting to work and another two hours getting home. That’s going against the tide of commuters going into New York City for work. Mr. Davis, who rented an apartment in Park Slope in Brooklyn when he landed a job in the securities industry in New York, found himself not on Wall Street, but in Ronkonkoma, working for a financial services management company.

He starts his morning with a stop for tea and a bagel at his neighborhood delicatessen, and walks 30 minutes or takes the subway to the Flatbush Avenue terminal of the Long Island Rail Road. In Jamaica, Queens, he changes trains and settles in for a 60-minute ride to his company’s office near MacArthur Airport, deep in Suffolk County. There, he keeps a car for the last leg of the commute, a total of two hours each way. “Usually, until I get to Mineola, I have to stand, but then I find a seat and read the paper,” he said. “I tried to find an apartment closer to work, but after 20 minutes of driving, I still wasn’t anyplace that was close to anything. I really like living in the city.”

Mr. Davis is among the some 300,000 people who live in New York City and make their way to jobs in the suburbs every day, part of a fast-growing segment of the work force that has turned the traditional idea of bedroom communities on its head. The group includes young workers in high-skilled professions, as well as tens of thousands of others up and down the income spectrum who prefer city living or cannot afford the suburban dream.

Planners and business groups across the region have increasingly come to realize that these commuters are a critical part of their economic prospects and are vigorously promoting transportation initiatives to encourage them. But they face considerable obstacles.

Many who travel to work against the tide have arduous commutes — long drives on crowded highways, or, for those who do not want or cannot afford cars, combinations of trains, buses, car pools and taxicabs cobbled together on transit systems that were not designed to accommodate them.

In spite of that, the number of city residents working in the suburbs grew 12 percent from 2000 to 2005, according to census figures calculated by the Queens College sociology department for The New York Times. About one in 11 city workers has a job in the suburbs, and the number is growing faster than any other segment of commuters.

The reason: A lot of jobs are in the suburbs. Whether they are at the upper end of the skill-and-income spectrum or the more modest-paying jobs in retail, health care or personal services, there is a labor demand in the suburbs. “Labor just simply flows to where the need is,” said Christopher P. Bruhl, president of the Business Council of Fairfield County, Conn. “We have more jobs than people, and we have to get people from somewhere.”

With many companies that signed leases for Manhattan office space during the stock market boom in the late 1990s now facing renewals at much higher rents, there could be more opportunities for the suburbs to gain jobs.

“There certainly are jobs in Manhattan, but there are more in the suburbs for me,” said Jonathan Berenbom, an actuary who left a job in the city for another one with a reinsurance company in Greenwich, Conn. “A lot of companies are moving, because the costs are less.” He traded a 35-minute subway ride for a 90-minute commute by subway and train.

Unemployment rates in the suburbs are remarkably low, 3.8 percent on Long Island and 3.7 percent in Westchester, compared with 5.2 percent in New York City in December. But the number of jobs declined faster than in the city in 2007, suggesting that businesses are having difficulty finding workers, say economists.

“Eighteen- to 34-year-olds are leaving the suburbs because of housing prices,” said James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. “It’s hard for companies to bring people here from North Carolina or Ohio, because you can get a dynamite house for $250,000 in North Carolina, and here you get a shoe box.”

So business groups have been encouraging transportation projects that make it easier to import workers from elsewhere, including the city. On Long Island, they have backed the construction of a third track on the Long Island Rail Road, which would move more people both ways.

“Long Island is going to have to draw work force from the city because our younger work force is declining,” said Matthew T. Crosson, president of the Long Island Association, a business group. “Without it, we’re going to have a serious problem in the future.”

In Westchester, where a third track on Metro-North Railroad’s line to White Plains was completed two years ago, business groups are lobbying for a new Tappan Zee Bridge to bring workers from Rockland County.

“We have a system that gets them effectively to White Plains and Yonkers and other places along the train lines, and when a new Tappan Zee Bridge is built, we will get people in from the West,” said Marsha Gordon, the president of the Business Council of Westchester.

Most reverse commuters drive, according to census figures. But with highways saturated at rush hours and cars expensive to maintain in the city, more attention is focusing on mass transit.

“As congestion on the highways has mounted, there has been a resurgence of interest in and use of transit in the suburbs,” Mr. Bruhl said. “Now building next to train stations is the hot button.”

Among the suburban regions, Long Island has the greatest number of New York City residents in its work force, but Westchester and Connecticut have seen the fastest growth recently, the census figures show.

The number of New York City residents who work on Long Island grew 5 percent from 2000 to 2005, to 111,826 from 106,487, according to the census. The number of city residents commuting to jobs in the Westchester and Connecticut suburbs is up 32 percent, to 72,487 in 2005 from 54,875 in 2000. In New Jersey, the number of reverse commuters has grown 14 percent, to 89,559 from 78,293.

“Riders from the city to the suburbs is the fast-growing part of the market, and Metro-North and New Jersey Transit have been able to take advantage of it,” said Christopher Jones, vice president for research at the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit organization that monitors transportation and development issues.

Metro-North runs several trains an hour on the reverse commute on its three lines. From 7 to 8 a.m., for instance, Metro-North runs 12 trains from Stamford to Grand Central Terminal and 5 trains in the opposite direction.

New Jersey Transit started carrying passengers on trains that it once sent empty on the reverse route at rush hour, said James P. Redeker, assistant executive director of the agency. Ridership on the reverse commute grew 72 percent from 1996 to 2006, when the number of riders over all increased 48 percent.

On the Long Island Rail Road, reverse commuting increased steadily through 2003, but has not grown since. Railroad officials say it is because they cannot add more trains — 14 trains operate eastbound on the Main Line in the morning rush, compared with 146 operating westbound. Supporters, including interest groups across the spectrum from business to environmental, think adding 10 miles of third track from Floral Park to Hicksville will make Long Island more competitive for reverse commuters: If you build it, they will come, they say. The communities along the line have fought bitterly against the idea.

“You create demand by creating more frequency,” said Lisa Tyson, the director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, which supports the third track because it could reduce automobile pollution and increase job options for lower-income workers.

But there are other impediments for reverse commuters, as the predicament of Mr. Davis and others aboard the 7:39 from New York to Ronkonkoma illustrates. Commercial development in the suburbs is not always close to rail lines, and getting from the train station to workplace can be a challenge.

“The time from 1980 to 2000 was the era of growth for suburban office parks,” Dr. Hughes said. They were developed along highway routes and drew workers in cars from the surrounding suburbs, not mass transit commuters.

Anthony Parker, 28, used to take the subway from Jamaica to Astoria, where he worked as an insurance adjuster. But his company moved the operations to Melville in Suffolk County, and his company is in a classic low-density suburban office park of two- and three-story buildings with vast parking lots spread out along a busy multilane roadway.

Mr. Parker drove to the new office in a car pool for a while, but after its other members were laid off, he started taking the 7:39. It takes him 20 more minutes to get to work than when he was driving, including a 15-minute bus ride when he gets off in Farmingdale — if he is lucky.

“If you miss the bus, that’s a problem, because the buses run about one time an hour,” Mr. Parker said.

“The office parks are difficult to get to,” said Mr. Redeker of New Jersey Transit, where planners have rerouted bus lines, sponsored shuttle vans and organized van pools to help get workers from trains to workplaces. “Middlesex County has a lot of towns looking at developments that are near, but not on, the train lines.”

Dr. Hughes said companies whose Manhattan leases are running out are finding that the rents have doubled, and they are looking at suburban alternatives that are substantially cheaper. “There’s going to be some repositioning,” he said. “Where are they going to go? I think Connecticut has the edge. Stamford has rail access, and that’s critical.”

Other cities in Westchester and Connecticut are poised to take advantage of the potential, Dr. Gordon said. “A lot of the new development in Westchester is in the downtowns, and it’s because of the availability of the train,” she said. “White Plains and Yonkers and New Rochelle are right there in creating development around transit.”

Long Island grew as a bedroom suburb and has little historic downtown development. “We’re going to have to be more intelligent about how we access our railroad stations,” said Pearl M. Kamer, the chief economist for the Long Island Association. “We will need jitneys or minibuses running to our major employment centers.”

In Farmingdale, where about half of the riders on the 7:39 get off, some companies have already taken the initiative. OSI Pharmaceuticals, which develops cancer drugs at a plant in the Route 110 corridor, runs two vans a day during each rush hour.

“We like being in New York and we enjoy being in Long Island,” said Kathy Galante, vice president for marketing. “We have access to a lot of the academic world — Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is very important to us — and we also need access to Wall Street. Being on Long Island is the best of both worlds.”

She said the company decided two years ago to try to tap the labor pool in New York City, and now a dozen of its 250 Farmingdale employees ride the train and take a shuttle from Farmingdale, and vice versa.

Dan Sherman, 39, a medicinal chemist, is one of them.

“I don’t have a car, and I don’t want a car,” said Mr. Sherman, who lives in Jackson Heights, Queens. “I don’t want to live on Long Island, but this kind of business is never in a place where I want to live.

“Company buses are a big perk,” he said. “I would have been reluctant to take this job without that.”


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/22/nyregion/24rcommuting.2-650.jpg
Jonathan Berenbom at Grand Central Terminal ready to board a Metro-North train that will take him to his job in
Greenwich, Conn.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/22/nyregion/24rcommute.3-650.jpg
Mr. Berenbom finds plenty of room on the Metro-North train on his way to Greenwich.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/24Rreverse.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

[the urban politician]

I'm a reverse commuter as well! (sort of)

I live in Forest Hills, Queens, and I work in Jamaica, Queens. Thus I take the subway towards Jamaica (away from Manhattan) when I head to work, followed by returning home on Manhattan-bound trains.

Not as dramatic as some of these other guys, but still worth noting.

Last year my commute was even more crazy. I took the train from Manhattan (where I used to live) to Jamaica and back every day. A true reverse commute..

[Steely Dan]

i'm a reverse commuter here in chicago. i live in the heart of downtown chicago, yet i work up in downtown evanston. i ride the CTA's purple line express train up to evanston every morning in the reverse commute direction, and while the train i ride isn't packed to the gills like the cattle cars heading into the loop during the morning rush, the train is always filled to standing room only capacity with all of us city folk going up to our jobs in evanston.

i'm a lucky reverse commuter though because i at least have train options to get me to my suburban job (and really evanston is a suburb in name only, it's actually quite urban by american standards), i have several friends who live in chicago's central area and have to commute by car out to their jobs in the craptacular office park dystopias of oak brook and schaumburg. they hate it, but you gotta do what you gotta do to to pay the bills.

[miketoronto]

Sad sad sad stats. We must stop the job loss from the city to burbs.

[Crawford]

^
How is this sad, and where's the "job loss"? Seems like a positive trend to me.

All that's happening is that people want to live in center cities, so they are now willing to endure long reverse commutes.

In the past, most people would just live in the crappy sububs.

It also utilizes public transportation much more efficiently than if eveyone were commuting in one direction.

[urbanactivistTX]

^
How is this sad, and where's the "job loss"? Seems like a positive trend to me.

All that's happening is that people want to live in center cities, so they are now willing to endure long reverse commutes.

In the past, most people would just live in the crappy sububs.

It also utilizes public transportation much more efficiently than if eveyone were commuting in one direction.

Agreed... It's very exciting that people want to live in the city, and are willing to do so even despite their job location. Currently, I'm a "normal commuter" in Houston, but i'll be moving much closer to my two jobs... one at a university and one downtown... both are a very short bus ride, or within biking distance.

The reverse commuters trend might grow for a while, but the economy is going to start moving people back to central cities. The sub-prime crisis has already crippled most suburban markets to the point where whole families are bailing out and renting apartments. Once people are COMPLETELY fed up with gas prices, they'll start clamouring to be near downtown (which is what I'm doing :) )

[MolsonExport]

Sad sad sad stats. We must stop the job loss from the city to burbs.


Add to "Life's certainties":

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Miketoronto bemoaning the suburbs

[pricemazda]

God what a dark and dirty subway station, yuck!

[POLA]

Actually, this might be good in some plaes, like New York because it reduces strains on th transit inbound and makes use of outbound transit. interesting.

[ThisSideofSteinway]

God what a dark and dirty subway station, yuck!

Oh, if you think that's bad, you'll absolutely love Chambers Street:
http://images.nycsubway.org/i1000/img_1413.jpg
(nycsubway.org)

Or Norwood - 205th Street:
http://images.nycsubway.org/i62000/img_62743.jpg
(nycsubway.org)

Many stations in the system are still suffering from the after-effects of deferred maintenance, unfortunately.

[Dac150]

^^^ Come on though, it's that beautiful grit that makes New York what it is. Urban underground at it's best, classic.

[ThisSideofSteinway]

^^^ Come on though, it's that beautiful grit that makes New York what it is. Urban underground at it's best, classic.

Oh, I'm not by any means against grit - in fact I'd have to say that most of my favorite neighborhoods to walk through are the gritty and haphazard downtown hoods. (And aren't you one of the guys who wants the whole city to be never-ending canyons of glass, anyway? ;) ) That notwithstanding, I think it's important to not conflate "grit" with potential health risks such as the swarms of rats or the disgusting standing water that builds up in places like the Chambers Street station. These kinds of things just shouldn't be acceptable in what is otherwise of the world's best subway systems.

[Dac150]

(And aren't you one of the guys who wants the whole city to be never-ending canyons of glass, anyway? ;)

Nah, as much as I love boxes, they are not what makes New York the urban captial that it is. They are of cousre part of the puzzle, but what really makes New York so special is the grit (which I think is the best part :yes:).

Now the CBD that is Midtown is another story.;)

[Jularc]

Hmm what subway line it that one for Chambers Street station. I don't think I ever seen that one like that. In that photo it looks almost like is closed for pedestrians.

Anyway, lately the MTA is painting and cleaning off some of these stations (but it takes forever). I am not sure about the rats though.

[Jularc]

Anyway here is the (cost) upsetting news though,


MTA officials say granite and porcelain for station floors are budget busters


BY PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, January 30th 2008, 4:00 AM
Forget the glitz.

Transit officials looking to save money may swap plans for fancy granite subway and train station floor tiles for a more economical - and drab - concrete.

The potential savings are significant and the issue is generating strong opinions.

"For me, this is a no-brainer," said Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member Barry Feinstein, calling granite a "very expensive amenity."
According to NYC Transit, the MTA's largest division, it costs $1.7 million to install granite flooring in the standard subway station, compared with $421,000 for regular concrete.

After considerable expenditures, it is also scrapping a third type of tiling material: porcelain, which has been used exclusively in underground stations for the past eight years.

Since then, 22 stations have received porcelain tile floors, at a typical cost of $1.4 million per station.

Those porcelain surfaces have not held up well and are cracking and chipping, said NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges.

MTA board member Andrew Albert, however, said concrete "looks horrible."
"A lot of people don't believe a station renovation project is done unless the floor has tiles," he said. "It doesn't look finished."

NYC Transit began a tile-vs.-concrete analysis more than a month ago. It is now doing a six-month pilot that will include costs associated with cleaning, maintenance and repairs.

More than 140 underground stations are still not in a "state of good repair" and will be subject of future overhauls.

There are 277 underground stations: 22 with porcelain tile, 25 granite, 79 other (quarry, specialized concrete), eight in design or construction, and 143 with their original concrete floors, all installed prior to 1982.

MTA CEO Elliot Sander and Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger on Monday announced that rising construction costs have prompted a 30-day review by top officials of the agency's "mega" construction projects like the LIRR extension to Grand Central Terminal and the Second Ave. subway.

Among the many items being reviewed for possible savings are so-called "project finishes," including flooring.

The search for savings will include looking at the new LIRR terminal being carved below Grand Central and whether the planned hub's fixtures and features should match the historic building's grandeur or be more pedestrian.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/30/2008-01-30_mta_officials_say_granite_and_porcelain_.html


Transit workers neglect removing gum drops from concrete floors: MTA prez


BY PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, January 31st 2008, 4:00 AM

If the gunked-up floor in your subway station appears to have been neglected, it's because it has been.

Transit workers don't bother removing gum from concrete floors even though they are diligent about scrubbing it off more expensive granite and porcelain tiling, NYC Transit President Howard Roberts said Wednesday. The agency in the past has not held the two types of flooring to the same standard of "cleanliness and appearance," Roberts said after an MTA committee meeting.

"If you go around the system ... in concrete stations we don't take gum off; essentially, we leave it down. In stations that have porcelain and granite [tiles], we do a much better job. You might see a couple of pieces but don't see one every half- inch."

NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges later said that concrete poses more of a challenge than tile. "Concrete flooring can't be cleaned like tiles, with scrubbers, and removing gum from concrete is labor-intensive," Fleuranges said. "Then there's the fact that spills and food settle in concrete easier and faster."

That may be, but gum-plastered platforms and mezzanine floors are no treat, advocates say. And while riders shouldn't treat station floors like trash cans, transit officials have to take action, said William Henderson, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.

"It's not attractive and you know where it came from ... from someone's mouth," he said of gum blots. "We want the officials to deal with this issue."
NYC Transit has launched a six-month pilot project to determine what will be the material of the future for the 277 underground stations. At a couple of stations, the candidates - concrete and granite tiles - will be treated equally to determine long-term costs in terms of cleaning, maintenance and repairs, officials said.

It costs $421,000 to put down concrete flooring in a standard subway station, compared with $1.7 million to use granite tiles, officials said. Transit official recently decided to stop using porcelain tiles because they have been chipping and cracking. In light of soaring construction and labor costs, and predicted operating budget gaps at NYC Transit and its parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, some transit officials are in favor of using concrete for future projects to save money.

But some advocates and officials see important benefits in the pricier tile flooring.

"Stations with concrete flooring are as warm and inviting as a fallout shelter," said the Straphanger Campaign's Gene Russianoff. "Cleaner, brighter tile floors are more welcoming and feel more secure."


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/31/2008-01-31_transit_workers_neglect_removing_gum_dro.html

[tdawg]

My boyfriend is a reverse commuter, he drives from Astoria to his teaching job on Long Island and back every day. Still takes him a while, though. Traffic is always pretty bad on the Grand Central and LIE.

[VivaLFuego]

i
i'm a lucky reverse commuter though because i at least have train options to get me to my suburban job (and really evanston is a suburb in name only, it's actually quite urban by american standards), i have several friends who live in chicago's central area and have to commute by car out to their jobs in the craptacular office park dystopias of oak brook and schaumburg. they hate it, but you gotta do what you gotta do to to pay the bills.

Indeed....the inbound expressways from Schaumburg and Oak Brook are now horribly jammed in the PM rush, often moreso than outbound because downtown commuting has such a heavy transit mode share (50-70% depending how you measure) in contrast to the suburbs which are more in the 2-10% range.

Also, jobs in general are a lagging indicator of socioeconomic trends. Despite rapid suburbanization of residential from the 50s-70s, it wasn't until the 80s-00s that the sprawlburban office park craze really took off with relocation of professional jobs to the boonies. At least in cities with core areas highly desirable to the high-skilled professional executives of tomorrow (NYC, Chicago, SF, Bos, DC, Philly), we can hope/expect that the trend in job location will eventually follow suit.

[VivaLFuego]

God what a dark and dirty subway station, yuck!

Welcome to Dick Cheney's America! :yes:

Do yourself a favor and avoid Clark/Division on the CTA Red Line.

[ThisSideofSteinway]

Hmm what subway line it that one for Chambers Street station. I don't think I ever seen that one like that. In that photo it looks almost like is closed for pedestrians.

Anyway, lately the MTA is painting and cleaning off some of these stations (but it takes forever). I am not sure about the rats though.

That's on the JMZ line, as part of the Chambers Street/Brooklyn Bridge - City Hall station. I think it actually looks a bit better now than it does in the above photo, but it's still pretty bad.

[miketoronto]

Reverse commutes are usually done by car, even in cities like NYC. The article even says that.

So all this does is add more traffic and pollution. Also from a job access point of view, this move puts on a burden on people who both drive and don't drive. By taking jobs and moving them to the fringe, you are hurting people who rely on transit and don't live right downtown, but live in other sectors of the city or suburbs, and have to endure two hour bus rides to work.
Car drivers suffer because of huge problems with traffic, etc. It is not a win win at all.
And the city loses out on tax revenue.

Dispersing the jobs is not the answer to anything and will just cause more problems in the future. It also leads to more sprawl.

Very small percentages of our metropolitan workforces work in the downtowns and central cities, that we do not need to encourage the trend of moving to the outskirts anymore. We should be going to the Detroit model and welcoming business back downtown and encouraging them to make the move from suburbs to city. Not the other way around.

I worked for the transit authority here in Toronto, and reverse commutes where the worse to plan out for people. We had so many people who use to take the train to their downtown job, start driving once the job moved to the suburbs, because the transit can not serve such dispersed places.
And the question I was always asked "why does this job have to be out in the suburbs. Why can't it be downtown".

[Riise]

And the question I was always asked "why does this job have to be out in the suburbs. Why can't it be downtown".

And the question I'm sure everyone always counters with is, "Why does everything have to be downtown?" I admire you passion Mike but you really need to move beyond what you currently know and have been taught. Monocentric cities with a strong core can work but so can polycentric cities, it's just a matter of how they are designed. Look at Calgary compared to Stockholm, even though Calgary is monocentric and has relatively high transit usage it's an auto-oriented version of monocentrism. On the other hand, Stockholm has gone with the polycentric urban villages method and isn't nearly as auto-dependent as Calgary. Look in your own backyard, even though T.O. has a strong core ringed with what can be deemed SmartGrowth communities/nieghbourhoods it's still a sprawling mess on its periphery.

[nygirl1]

^^^ Come on though, it's that beautiful grit that makes New York what it is. Urban underground at it's best, classic.

Uber character regardless if you catch syphilis. No it is dirty, and cramped, and creepy sometimes but I often find myself grinning at all the little cracks in the wall, the old tiles, the rolling Mcdonalds wrapper after a train breezes through. I even like the pitter patter underneath when there is no other sound, the whistle combined with summer heat, and the stench of the garbage cans all around that often get bypassed.

Its mine and I love it.

I love the seedy characters that often come down ( I've always considered them harmless but entertaining from a distance) I love the illegal performances that you still bump into, tourists who try desperatly to look like they aren't totally clueless or nervous. I love it when there is some sort of parade in town. If you can imagine.. Blue and Red everywhere ( super bowl champion giants) Puerto rican flags everywhere you turn ( puerto rican day parade), Italians packing every car , Green on everyone ( Columbus and St. Patricks day). Gay Pride is one of the best with all the trannys dressed up for the day, hot lesbians, and rainbows filling up the car.

The best however goes to Halloween. Its pretty cool when everyone is in costume. Anyway, I love my dirty subways and I love the fact that noone seems to care. Just get on, get off, and get back up into the world.

And just to stick it to you squeaky clean snobs: Watch your step when your down here sometimes it isn't just a spilled beverage, enjoy looking just like everyone else.

New York Subway :worship:

[ctman987]

I love the NYC subway. Use it daily and love it. So much cheaper, my transportation expenses amount to $76.00 per month for an unlimited car for 30 days.

Never had any problems with people on the subway - unless you count having to shove into a packed #1 train at rush hour in midtown to get home to Riverdale :)

Honestly only real problem ive had that has seriously affected my trip was today when the #1 line was closed due to a police investigation from Dyckman to 242nd Street - so I simply just called in to work and said I couldnt make it.

[MonkeyRonin]

Dispersing the jobs is not the answer to anything and will just cause more problems in the future. It also leads to more sprawl.

Employment dispersion a la Tokyo is the most efficient form for large cities. The only problem is that so few cities seem to get this right.


Very small percentages of our metropolitan workforces work in the downtowns and central cities, that we do not need to encourage the trend of moving to the outskirts anymore.

Not every job can be downtown. Most people work in service-type jobs, which NEED to be dispersed throughout a region for the sake of not having awful design (who wants to travel downtown for a bag of milk?). Industrial/factory jobs also should not be located downtown at all. They are space consuming, ugly, and a major source of pollution...which is better suited to the suburbs anyway.

[miketoronto]

Employment dispersion a la Tokyo is the most efficient form for large cities. The only problem is that so few cities seem to get this right.


Tokyo is actually highly centralized compared to North American cities.
And North American cities are not the size of Tokyo.


Not every job can be downtown. Most people work in service-type jobs, which NEED to be dispersed throughout a region for the sake of not having awful design (who wants to travel downtown for a bag of milk?). Industrial/factory jobs also should not be located downtown at all. They are space consuming, ugly, and a major source of pollution...which is better suited to the suburbs anyway.

No one said every job had to be in the central city. We are not talking about milk stores. We are talking about high quality office jobs in finance as an example. These jobs use to be in the central city. Reducing the central city's role in a region is not good.

[OhioGuy]

I reverse commuted last year for my job which was located out in the Elk Grove Village/Arlington Heights area, but my commute had to be done by car. It was just going to take too long to take the bus to Jefferson Park, transfer to the blue line out to Rosemont, then transfer to a Pace Bus to travel the remaining 6-7 miles to my job. When I moved here, I chose the neighborhood I did because it seemed to be a good central point between downtown Chicago and work, affording me both direct rail line transit for travel throughout the city and a driving commute that was only about 17 miles to my job.

I'm actually back in school earning my masters degree in a completely different career field. My car is gone now and I'm relying solely on transit to get to/from school, which again is a reverse commute for me. I head downtown for classes during the evening rush hour at a time when the majority of people are heading outbound (and the packed outbound trains certainly reflect that).

[Dac150]

Uber character regardless if you catch syphilis. No it is dirty, and cramped, and creepy sometimes but I often find myself grinning at all the little cracks in the wall, the old tiles, the rolling Mcdonalds wrapper after a train breezes through. I even like the pitter patter underneath when there is no other sound, the whistle combined with summer heat, and the stench of the garbage cans all around that often get bypassed.

Its mine and I love it.

I love the seedy characters that often come down ( I've always considered them harmless but entertaining from a distance) I love the illegal performances that you still bump into, tourists who try desperatly to look like they aren't totally clueless or nervous. I love it when there is some sort of parade in town. If you can imagine.. Blue and Red everywhere ( super bowl champion giants) Puerto rican flags everywhere you turn ( puerto rican day parade), Italians packing every car , Green on everyone ( Columbus and St. Patricks day). Gay Pride is one of the best with all the trannys dressed up for the day, hot lesbians, and rainbows filling up the car.

The best however goes to Halloween. Its pretty cool when everyone is in costume. Anyway, I love my dirty subways and I love the fact that noone seems to care. Just get on, get off, and get back up into the world.

And just to stick it to you squeaky clean snobs: Watch your step when your down here sometimes it isn't just a spilled beverage, enjoy looking just like everyone else.

New York Subway :worship:

Well said, and agreed 100%.:yes: It is the best, and nothing else comes close to compare.

[nygirl1]

Hell no it doesn't. At least not to me. After seein pictures of the tube, looks just like Hong Kong , like Tokyo, like Paris.

[hokiehigh]

i am in chicago doing a reverse commute from bucktown to lake forest. it's 1.5 hours each way b/c i have a 15 min walk, 50 min Metra ride and a 30 min PACE bus ride. i do get to work from home a few days a week so it is bearable for now.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I don't know how it is in Toronto, and I can only speak for Phoenix, but downtown commercial real estate (as well as CRE in midtown and the Biltmore) is expensive, hence the reason we have so many goddamn office parks in places like Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Glendale, Goodyear, etc where the leases are much cheaper.

Does it suck? Yes, but its also a fact of life: Regardless of the environmental impact, one of the top priorities for any business is cutting costs, not whatever miketoronto thinks should happen in Happy Urban La-La Land. If people take trains to get out to the burbs rather than cars, great, but not every city in this country is as lucky as places like New York, Chicago, and even LA, in regards to public transit at this point in time.

[miketoronto]

We have to stop with the cost excuses. These companies have money to spend on rent. If everything was by cost, then these companies should not even be in the suburbs, but out in some far off bushland somewhere.

The cost thing just does not wash, as companies seemed to have no problem being in the central cities before. Since the 90's, its been like this huge push out. And not just downtown. Inner suburban areas which sometimes can cost a little more then outter suburban areas, are also losing business.

Sometimes the bottom line is not what matters. Sometimes quality of life, and building a great city costs a little more. But it pays off in the long run.

Also central cities are not all expensive Grade A offices. Even in downtown there is a huge selection from Grade AA to warehouse spaces, etc. The diversity is there. My own sister who has a very very very small busines of her own, has no problem with renting a downtown space. She is not in the core of the business district, but 5 min outside of it, in the east part of downtown. If you have a will to be in the city, there is a way. And these huge companies are not cash strapped for some nice office space.

[MolsonExport]

^what do you propose? Should companies be forced downtown? Perhaps they would instead pull stakes and move to China?

[Busy Bee]

Concerning the tile/concrete floor issue, this news doesn't really upset me. In my opinion the greyish mauve tile that has been put into many stations in the past decade screams drab and boring. The color is lifeless and the lack of sheen does not compliment the stations historic tiling and looks hodgepodge. It makes no design statement whatsoever and in many ways adds to the shabby appearance of the station. The whole "look" if you can call it that gives the impression that an architect wasn't even involved and whoever spec'd those materials and colors were not qualified to make such an aesthetic decision.

Since they are discussing concrete they should do what they should have done from the beginning: stained concrete that has a stone appearance with a polished semi-gloss sheen with slip resistant sand thrown on top all sealed with a catalyzed sealant. It could be done in complimentary brown/light brown or shades of warm gray or why not even blue? It could be different at every station if they wanted. They could also create patterns if they got creative, which is not very often unfortunately. There is so much that could be done to these stations that works with what they have and can make them appear more refined, less raw and polished. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, the MTA only thinks it does.

[MonkeyRonin]

Tokyo is actually highly centralized compared to North American cities.

No it isn't. While Business districts in North America tend to be concentrated in one area, Tokyo has no single area that can be defined as THE central business district. Greater Tokyo also has many smaller cities with their own CBDs, unlike NA cities, where suburbs are predominantly residential. Transit accessibility =/= centralization.


We are talking about high quality office jobs in finance as an example. These jobs use to be in the central city.

As they still are.

[Buckeye Native 001]

We have to stop with the cost excuses. These companies have money to spend on rent. If everything was by cost, then these companies should not even be in the suburbs, but out in some far off bushland somewhere.

The cost thing just does not wash, as companies seemed to have no problem being in the central cities before. Since the 90's, its been like this huge push out. And not just downtown. Inner suburban areas which sometimes can cost a little more then outter suburban areas, are also losing business.

Sometimes the bottom line is not what matters. Sometimes quality of life, and building a great city costs a little more. But it pays off in the long run.

Also central cities are not all expensive Grade A offices. Even in downtown there is a huge selection from Grade AA to warehouse spaces, etc. The diversity is there. My own sister who has a very very very small busines of her own, has no problem with renting a downtown space. She is not in the core of the business district, but 5 min outside of it, in the east part of downtown. If you have a will to be in the city, there is a way. And these huge companies are not cash strapped for some nice office space.

I hate to break it to you Mike, but life's a little bit rougher outside Scarborough. The bottom line is all that matters to these companies, and if they can get cheaper office space in the suburbs, they will (and this phenomenon isn't just in Phoenix, its all over the goddamn North American continent). Not everything can/will be a fucking Frank Capra movie in terms of urban development.

Your sister has a small business with maybe what, ten part-time and full-time employees? 20 employees all in all? I work for a company that has more than 500 employees and is only based in midtown Phoenix close to downtown because they converted an old shopping mall into an office complex. We can trade anecdotes back and forth all day, but I personally find them useless when it comes to the big picture.

Where's the magic wand that's going to suddenly accommodate hundreds of thousands of suburban office employees in any given downtown, what the hell is it going to cost, and who the fuck is going to pay for it?

[Buckeye Native 001]

^what do you propose? Should companies be forced downtown? Perhaps they would instead pull stakes and move to China?

Bingo. Lets see how many companies would rather go to sprawling complexes in India and China if Canada and the USA made it a requirement that all major companies be forced to operate in downtowns across the continent...Who's to determine what's "downtown" and "inner-ring" in that regard, anyway?

Its unfortunate it happens, but the reality is that it's going to happen and will continue, the consequences be damned.

[Pinion]

I commute with a short 15 minute passenger boat ride as of this week. I'm three blocks from the north dock and work is one block from the south dock. Love it.

My old commute was over an hour each way and drove me crazy. I dunno how anyone does it.

[LordMandeep]

Tokyo is not centralized.

If it was then why do not know what the Tokyo skyline looks like? Apart from the radio tower shot, do you know it like London or NY???

Well it is because it has buildings everywhere!! Its not all focused...

[miketoronto]

You guys can debate all day with me. But I am not going to say that moving jobs 50KM outside of a city centre is a good thing. I never have said every job has to be downtown. I said I do not believe in job sprawl. And yes I do believe in grounding a large number of jobs in the city centre again(I never said every single job).

Guess what, we have urban planning to rectify problems. Our metropolitan areas are not a free for all development area. Each area has to decide what kind of city they want.

Job sprawl is a very big issue, and if we continue to let it happen, we will continue to see increased traffic, worse central city budgets, lack of transit use, and increased residential sprawl.

Job sprawl is worse then residential sprawl. Atleast with residential sprawl, if the people had a job downtown they atleast took a commuter train to work. Now we are building job sprawl, and people both city and suburb are driving.

If I remember correct, I think Winnipeg has banned almost all non downtown office developments. Not sure if the bylaw has passed, but I heard they were starting a bylaw like that, to end office sprawl in the suburbs.

Sorry guys. I believe in cities. I am not going to stand up and say moving jobs 50KM outside of the city is a good thing. Because it is not. It goes against the very principle of building compact metropolitan regions, and building strong and healthy cities.
Cities need jobs, not just residents. I think the only person who understands this is the mayor of Chicago, who actually has a plan to increase both downtown and city wide employment levels. Because he understands you need jobs in the city. Not just condo dwellers.

[J. Will]

nm

[Riise]

Sorry guys. I believe in cities. I am not going to stand up and say moving jobs 50KM outside of the city is a good thing. Because it is not. It goes against the very principle of building compact metropolitan regions, and building strong and healthy cities.

I believe that you have a very narrow definition of what cities are and can be. Cities don't need to be monocentric in order to be compact, sustainable, and healthy. There are numerous examples around the world of polycentric cities that have spread business and general development around their city and to other areas in their region but kept them concentrated in compact "urban villages".

[dimondpark]

I dont believe this is a new phenomenon-in fact, its been quite the norm in most places for a long time now. Ever since the erosion of downtown office workers began back in the middle part of the 20th century.


And as far as New York,
I recall doing some consulting work in Paramus and traffic out there was just awful. Most of it was inter-NJ and not even going to the City.

[IconRPCV]

I am a reverse commuter as well. I live In Downtown San Diego and commute 45 min north to Temecula and back. It much prefer the urban setting of my home to the suburban uck, so I commute.

[krudmonk]

Who needs work to be in a great environment anyway? It's work. It will always suck.

[miketoronto]

I believe that you have a very narrow definition of what cities are and can be. Cities don't need to be monocentric in order to be compact, sustainable, and healthy. There are numerous examples around the world of polycentric cities that have spread business and general development around their city and to other areas in their region but kept them concentrated in compact "urban villages".

First of all, the job locations in North American cities suburbs are for the most part not planned "urban villages". They are office parks on the edge of the highway.

Second, even the most decentralized European city, is more centralized then North American cities as they stand today. Something like only 10-20% of regional workers work in our downtowns already in the USA and Canada. We do not need to further erode not only downtown employment, but central city employment.

Sorry that I do not subscribe to the sprawl agenda and am not supporting jobs 50KM out of the city, that people have to reverse commute to.
If you think its great, fine. But I do not.
And I never said every job had to be in the CBD either.

I am just calling for no job sprawl.
One of the things we are learning in planning school is that we can not continue to spread everything out so much. Infact my professor went so far as to say that we do not even need to develope one piece of farmland, and that even in a high growth region like Toronto, we could fit all new people and jobs within the city limits on brownfields.

Sprawl is not the answer, job or residential wise. Not to mention the lack of access you have to the job pool. Centrally located business have such an advantage.
As our regions become larger and people can't drive across the region in 20minutes, central city locations are going to be the only logical choice, if you want to capture a large workforce pool.

[Riise]

I am just calling for no job sprawl.

And I'm saying that the dispersion of jobs around a city or region doesn't have to be sprawl, there are different fashions in which the growth can occur.


Sorry that I do not subscribe to the sprawl agenda and am not supporting jobs 50KM out of the city, that people have to reverse commute to.

Reverse commuting allows for the full utilization of a public transport system; empty cars are inefficient.


One of the things we are learning in planning school is that we can not continue to spread everything out so much... Sprawl is not the answer, job or residential wise. Not to mention the lack of access you have to the job pool.

One of the things I hope you learn by the time you are as far into your studies as I is that growth does not equate to sprawl. Earlier you mentioned that European cities are far more concentrated that North American cities, putting aside a worthy argument about that, in preparation for my European Cities field school this summer I've been assigned to read a book about Sprawl in the EU. One of the main topics of the book is how to turn the sprawl into SmartGrowth. Cities like München are spreading out but they are channeling their growth into compact, transit-oriented, and, most importantly, sustainable growth corridors. With convenient and easily accessible rapid transit places on the edge of the city are as accessible as Central München.

[miketoronto]

reverse commuting allows for the full utilization of a

First of all, even in the most centralized cities, there are still jobs not located right in the centre of town. So the transport network always has some movement going in the opposite direction.

The only thing reverse commuting allows, is a decrease in transit modal share, a rise in car modal share, and less people on transit.

I say its time central cities took back their seat as the head of our metropolitan regions in the economic department. We have had job sprawl for far to long, and it is time to stop it.

Or are you going to continue to accept job sprawl, and say "oh its o.k. jobs are moving from the outter suburbs to even the further outter suburbs 100KM from the city".

Sooner or latter it has to stop, and its better it stops now.

[passdoubt]

I've reverse commuted most of my life, except brief periods where I've walked to work and been in school. I've never regularly driven to work though, always taken the train and walked.

And I'm actually just about to accept a job offer for which I'll be moving to NYC to reverse commute to the suburbs there as well, so this article is very germane for me! I just tested out some potential commutes from different neighborhoods and enjoyed the prospect of the comfortable train ride free of the crowds that you have to deal with when you're doing the traditional commute in NY.

I've always found it much easier to find a job in the 'burbs than the city. My theory: for professionals at the bottom of the pay scale (20-somethings), there's a ton of competition for jobs in cities, whereas in the suburbs there's much less (but more competition for upper management positions). Young singles want to live downtown; families with kids want to live in suburbia. In New York it's even more magnified. Young college grads move there from all over the country and world. They typically don't know jack about Long Island or Westchester and wouldn't even consider applying to a job there-- or even consider that they could get a job right along the LIRR or Metro-North or NJTransit line that takes about as long to commute as a typical job in the City on the MTA subway.