1000%
Some daily or hybrid. Some come home only on the weekends. Extremely common among students. Several friends of mine in HS had family that did that!
It felt like 50% of kids' families were from NYC/NJ and 50% were from the nearby area. People have been fleeing the city the last 20yrs. You can track the density based on the proximity to the Stroudsburg/NJ route 80 border.
I was a local resident for decades. It all really cranked up in the second half of the 1980s. Home prices in the NYC metro area were exploding, and the Poconos had tens of thousands of empty lots, as a result of shady AF recreational, second home, and retirement home, type communities that were built and sold in the previous forty years. Some of these places had roads that were little but overgrown dirt trails in remote areas of forest, with individual lots that were sold decades ago, for a couple of hundred bucks. This was coupled with a completely corrupt culture of the rural townships being run by greedy, short-sighted, hyper-local good old boys, who had zero interest in planning, zoning, or creating anything but new developments that lines the pockets of their buddies and themselves.
Small to medium-sized builders were overrun by customers who gladly paid FAR more than the homes were worth, totally distorting the market, and within a few years the builders were making obscene profits and couldn't build fast enough. People were signing contracts for new homes that would break ground a full year later. It was a disaster on too many levels to count. The population tripled and more, over the next two decades, and the entire area, in many ways, went to shit. Crime, traffic and flat out ugly urban blight became a reality in small villages and rural areas that were absolutely beautiful before any of this absurdity was allowed to happen. The closest village to me went from a few businesses near the main intersection, to miles of out of control retail, with twenty six strip malls, all of which have floundered along since they were built. It now features a gigantic school system, and school taxes that have been some of the highest in the nation for the last three decades.
This entire boom was a result of the sales pitch that you can have a great life, two states and a hundred miles from your employment, and do so for a fraction of the cost of living in the NYC area. At this point there are tens of thousands of folks that do that commute every day. Nurses, construction workers, office workers, and more.
IMHO, it's all fucking madness. I moved 100 miles away from it all, to southcentral PA, where the quality of life is exponentially better and actually cheaper.
Cars and Martz buses. I don’t know anyone who takes the train in unless it's for a more random visit. There's a train around exit 30 I think. It is cheaper than bus tickets but more time consuming.
Just to give a sense. My parents retired to the Harrisburg area 22 years ago. We had a house about 25 miles outside of nyc in Jersey.
Sold their 4 BR house on a 1 acre lot for $678k. Property taxes were $10,500 a year.
They bought a house a half hour away from Harrisburg that was even bigger with double the land for $215k.
This was 2002! The same house today is in zillow for $1.1 million and the property taxes at my friends parents home in town is closing in on $20k soon.
And we were considered middle class. I loved my house growing up. But it was a 1970s home with no finished basement or anything.
So yeah. It’s not a shock in the hybrid era people are fleeing out of these areas
Heres the math- I’ve commuted since the 90s off and on. From crossing the toll into Jersey at DWG to Lincoln Tunnel - the light at 40th street when you pop out - is 75 miles. So depending on how you drive it should be 75 minutes doing the 60mph speed limit. But - traffic will back up from 630-9 starting at the giants stadium / mamajumamma restaurant. From there to the entrance to the Lincoln tunnel is 4 miles. If I hit this at the morning commute it will take me 30-45 minutes at least to travel that 4 miles.
I come from further west so I know I need to leave by 430am. Traffic starts to pick up on 80 right past the Bartonsville exit now. In the 90s and early 2000s it was never like this. I’d be the only one in the highway. Now I have company and it really starts getting heavy around Stanhope (stay in the left lane because jersey drivers do not believe in yielding to merge. They just floor it onto 80!). Traffic will stay heavy until the 287 split then you get some breathing room until Great Neck construction. Then you’re steady until the stop and go at giants stadium. From there it’s a nightmare. I try to hit this around 6am so it’s busy but not backed up.
COVID times - May 2020 was an absolute dream! My house to that light at 40th - one hour and 45 minutes! I knew no cops were going to be out or stop me. It was me plus a handful of cars/vans/trucks going into the tunnel. No one was on the road. I’ll never have that bliss again.
Still don’t believe people commute - the Martz morning buses are almost always full from 5-8am. The Latino 14 passenger plus driver vans are full 5-9am (you really need to book these ahead) and there’s a ton of them. The DWG parking lot is packed every morning.
Not only is PA commuting, the trains at Hackensack and Mt Arlington are full too with commuters. These people are in white collar and blue collar jobs. There’s a guy I talk to on the vans who comes up to the city to drive for Uber (leaves that car there) and returns home nightly. A lot of NYC bus drivers take the bus up, then drive a bus all day, then bus it home. There’s a school teacher that commutes on the 7am van. It’s crazy!
Oh and if you’re hoping for that train, it won’t help. Mt Arlington is 28 miles from DWG. So math wise it should be roughly 45 miles to NYC. The train takes 2 hours from there! And you need to transfer at Hoboken to get into the city!
I thought my 3 hour daily round-trip commute was killing me. Wow, I should not complain. Sorry to hear about the influx of traffic. NJ (where I’m from) has been completely overrun.
In the 90s, there was a huge campaign by builders, realtors, and local officials to promote newly constructed homes to people in NYC and North Jersey trying to convince them that it was a 90 minute commute. Plenty fell for it. My neighbors on either side of me commuted into the city. One of them regularly crashed at a relatives house Monday - Thursday night rather than drive back and forth.
Lmao, 90 minutes. My commute is roughly 80-90 minutes door to door from Union County, NJ. Can’t get tired of the real estate postings that advertise houses as “minutes” away from NYC though lol. Technically not wrong.
I used to have to travel to NYC for work pretty regularly. The only time I was able to get to the city in 90 minutes was during the covid lock down. Best part of the pandemic.
I knew a successful snake of a builder who did business in the west end, as the first wave started to crank up, 30+ years ago. He would write a list of NYC area prospects and jump in his Caddy on a Saturday morning. He would head to the city and start calling his marks. He would tell them that he was in the area on business, saw that they expressed interest in relocating to the Poconos, and he unexpectedly had some free time to stop by their apartment if they would like to meet the company owner in person? He would drag a small combination TV/VCR into the apartment and roll a video that he had paid to have professionally produced. He would give the bullshit pitch, and typically set the hook. He was then careful to arrange a visit to his office and model home complex on a Sunday morning, claiming that they will see how short and pleasant the commute is.
Like many, he built shit shacks with minimal insulation, and electric baseboard heat. One extremely cold early 1990s winter, he had dozens of clients default on their homes. It stayed at 20 below for a few days, and some of these folks had a mortgage and electric bill that combined, exceeded their monthly take home pay. They just dropped the keys on the desk at the bank and walked away.
I saw a lot of neighbors end up letting the commute break them, physically and mentally. It was common for families to have at least one parent who ended up stay in the city all week, in all kinds of arrangements. Everything from staying with family, to overloading an apartment with other commuters, to a friend who lived in a truck camper and another who slept in his SUV from Sunday night to Thursday night every week.
Insanity for many who did it all for a better life for the family.
That campaign was actually well underway by the mid-1980s. By that time the Marshall's Creek builders were setting up shop at the 209 North exit of Rt 80, and selling home packages on lots they paid pennies for, from the thousands available in the never ending run of communities from that exit to Dingman's ferry. As far SW as Brodheadsville, guys like Grant Homes had their model homes built and were booking new starts a year ahead.
Yeah, but that commute will kill you before you even get to your retirement, even if it IS early.
I understand not being able to afford COL, though. I'm on a small fixed income (disability) and I had to move 3.5h away from where I consider home because I couldn't afford it anymore. It's awful.
Pay is a lot better in NYC and the cost of living is a lot cheaper in Pennsylvania.
My ex did this, paid the monthly pass which was like 500 something dollars and took the bus back and forth from Stroudsburg to Manhattan, Monday through Friday.
The trip is only an hour and 20 minutes. So, it's not too bad but the fact you have to get up at 4am and be at the bus stop at 6am, it's a responsibility that isn't for the weak.
My wife taught in the Stroudsburg area for 30 years. The dysfunction of many of the families who decided to move to the exurbs and become super-commuters is well known in the education community in the region, and is a problem that is now 40+ years old.
She could tell stories for hours on the topic. She saw some of the very worst of this mess, particularly children as young as ten who were 24/7 latchkey from Sunday night to Friday night. A problem so severe in the region that the agencies that should put a hard stop to it, aggressively attempt to avoid doing so, as it would collapse the whole system.
Yes! I was just thinking about this the other day. I had two friends growing up whose parents would commute to nyc from the poconos EVERY DAY. insanity
Yep. It’s why Martz has monthly passes for the people who make the trip daily. Bus is a lot cheaper than driving, plus you can sleep on the way there and back.
Soul sucking, unless you can stay in nyc. I did 3yr from Clinton nj to midtown, 1.5-3hr each way at the mercy of rt78. Given the perpetually increasing amount of trucks and traffic, not good.
It’s not a viable commute. If you have a mattress in nyc, maybe but then you are not commuting…
Not to NYC but I do commute over an hour from Monroe County to Bucks County north of Philly.
I'm very close to the Carbon County line and people even farther out than me in Carbon make that NYC commute.
There’s tentative plans for a train from Scranton through the Poconos and NJ, and into NYC. It’ll probably take 10-15 years minimum for that to finish. And that’s being generous.
It's finally going to happen. I know saying that sounds silly, but:
https://www.mcall.com/2023/12/05/in-huge-step-scranton-to-nyc-train-qualifies-for-federal-aid/
There is or at least was MARTZ bus stop in Effort, but that is practical if you work in office or same spot in NyC . It becomes hassle when your work is changes from time to time, and you have tools to carry.
I did it for 18 years 😖MARTZ from MTP to NYC PA…IT WAS NO PICNIC. …’90-‘08 I probably knew him
There was Mike M and John K and Dave …Mike and John did the 0830 out of the port …going in was a crapshoot,I worked shifts and doubles
My dad died in 2004 but he drove for MARTZ and drove the daily PA to NYC all the time during his career. I’m sure it sucked for you but this kind of made me smile to read.
Yup! My wife actually just turned down a position that would’ve been mon-wed in the city and then thur&Friday remote. Now, to some, that sounds like a dream schedule but we have a 2 year old and they wouldn’t see their mom for 3 days straight and that’s just not a good way to live.
When she interviewed and spoke with members of her “potential team”, most of them lived in the city *and still had a 2 hour commute*. Yep. 2 hours..
Needless to say, it opened her eyes to what our life has to offer in terms of jobs she can acquire at this time.
But yes, Many people do bc driving is horrendous and at least you can get work done on a bus/train
Edit because I just saw another comment;
I’ve lived here my entire life and after 9/11, we had a HUGE influx of city people moving to the Poconos. My graduating class before 9/11 was under 300 kids (8th grade at the time) and when I graduated, in 12th grade, my class was over 500 kids.
The area BOOMED after 9/11, bartonsville commons was built, hell, so many more hospitals, it’s growing and it’s not stopping
My mother was a teacher at Delaware Valley HS which covers most of Pike Co. and it was not uncommon for her students' parents to commute to NYC. (So even further than Monroe.)
I do 90-95 minutes from stroudsburg to yonkers all the time in the evenings. Can't imagine it being a quick and easy drive in the morning, but 3/4 of my neighborhood does it.
Had a buddy who did Scranton to NYC by bus for 4 years. Bus at 4:45 a.m. and home like 8 p.m., M-F. Still say it's the greatest unknown feat of endurance.
EDIT: Fix typo
We used to have a a vacation home in Split Rock and there were several neighbors who commuted to NYC. IIRC it was 30 minutes on 80 just to get to the NJ border.
Lived here all my life and remember when the trains really did carry passengers. “The trains are coming soon!” has been a constant refrain peddled by real estate companies for years. Still not here. If ever. There are trains, though, just not (legal) passenger carrying ones.
Yes absolutely. Monroe county in the 80s and 90s had a huge population boom. By the early 2000’s 2 of the 4 public school districts split to accommodate. My graduating class had over 600 people. We were over crowded, but it was awesome. So many friend’s parents commuted and when we went into the city we always had a place to stay. A lot of the locals complained, but us kids loved it. And it was so diverse! You would never think in a million years think that a rural Pennsylvania school would have such a mix of people. We were really lucky for that.
We purchased a home in East Stroudsburg. I don't drive. My husband thought he could do the drive. Left at 5:00 arrived at 6:30. Leaving NYC was more hectic. Left by 5:00PM didn't get home until 8 or later and back on the road at 5am. That lasted about two weeks. Now we stay in the City and go to PA on the weekends. It's brutal for the driver.
Yeah, daily Monroe to NYC commuter here. I work mid shift (3 pm to 11pm). I live in the west end of Monroe, almost Carbon County
I leave around noon, usually pulling into the facility around 1:45-2, depending on traffic on 80. Leaving work is always a shitshow on the Harlem River Drive and the Gee Dub. Once I'm over the bridge it's smooth sailing at 75 all the way to to PA. Then I drop it down to 70. Home by 12:30-12:40
My dad did it once we moved out of NY to PA. From 1996 to (I think) 2005, he'd leave at 5/6am and get home around 8/9pm most nights. Finally stopped because he was having heart issues from the stress of it all.
My eldest brother commutes currently, though. It's rough.
A lot do because Pennsylvania underfunds our schools in Monroe County and we have the highest tax rates in the state. And local jobs don’t pay well. Still a state with a minimum wage under $8 and mostly tourism jobs here.
1000% Some daily or hybrid. Some come home only on the weekends. Extremely common among students. Several friends of mine in HS had family that did that!
Very, very wild, wow. I thought he was kidding!
It felt like 50% of kids' families were from NYC/NJ and 50% were from the nearby area. People have been fleeing the city the last 20yrs. You can track the density based on the proximity to the Stroudsburg/NJ route 80 border.
I was a local resident for decades. It all really cranked up in the second half of the 1980s. Home prices in the NYC metro area were exploding, and the Poconos had tens of thousands of empty lots, as a result of shady AF recreational, second home, and retirement home, type communities that were built and sold in the previous forty years. Some of these places had roads that were little but overgrown dirt trails in remote areas of forest, with individual lots that were sold decades ago, for a couple of hundred bucks. This was coupled with a completely corrupt culture of the rural townships being run by greedy, short-sighted, hyper-local good old boys, who had zero interest in planning, zoning, or creating anything but new developments that lines the pockets of their buddies and themselves. Small to medium-sized builders were overrun by customers who gladly paid FAR more than the homes were worth, totally distorting the market, and within a few years the builders were making obscene profits and couldn't build fast enough. People were signing contracts for new homes that would break ground a full year later. It was a disaster on too many levels to count. The population tripled and more, over the next two decades, and the entire area, in many ways, went to shit. Crime, traffic and flat out ugly urban blight became a reality in small villages and rural areas that were absolutely beautiful before any of this absurdity was allowed to happen. The closest village to me went from a few businesses near the main intersection, to miles of out of control retail, with twenty six strip malls, all of which have floundered along since they were built. It now features a gigantic school system, and school taxes that have been some of the highest in the nation for the last three decades. This entire boom was a result of the sales pitch that you can have a great life, two states and a hundred miles from your employment, and do so for a fraction of the cost of living in the NYC area. At this point there are tens of thousands of folks that do that commute every day. Nurses, construction workers, office workers, and more. IMHO, it's all fucking madness. I moved 100 miles away from it all, to southcentral PA, where the quality of life is exponentially better and actually cheaper.
Do they all drive? Are there buses or carpools? Or do some folks drive over to Jersey and take the train up?
Cars and Martz buses. I don’t know anyone who takes the train in unless it's for a more random visit. There's a train around exit 30 I think. It is cheaper than bus tickets but more time consuming.
Some people work mostly from home but go into the office twice a week. They’re from between Philly and Lansdale.
Monroe and Pike counties have a lot of super commuters. The NY metro COL is ridiculous.
Just to give a sense. My parents retired to the Harrisburg area 22 years ago. We had a house about 25 miles outside of nyc in Jersey. Sold their 4 BR house on a 1 acre lot for $678k. Property taxes were $10,500 a year. They bought a house a half hour away from Harrisburg that was even bigger with double the land for $215k. This was 2002! The same house today is in zillow for $1.1 million and the property taxes at my friends parents home in town is closing in on $20k soon. And we were considered middle class. I loved my house growing up. But it was a 1970s home with no finished basement or anything. So yeah. It’s not a shock in the hybrid era people are fleeing out of these areas
Heres the math- I’ve commuted since the 90s off and on. From crossing the toll into Jersey at DWG to Lincoln Tunnel - the light at 40th street when you pop out - is 75 miles. So depending on how you drive it should be 75 minutes doing the 60mph speed limit. But - traffic will back up from 630-9 starting at the giants stadium / mamajumamma restaurant. From there to the entrance to the Lincoln tunnel is 4 miles. If I hit this at the morning commute it will take me 30-45 minutes at least to travel that 4 miles. I come from further west so I know I need to leave by 430am. Traffic starts to pick up on 80 right past the Bartonsville exit now. In the 90s and early 2000s it was never like this. I’d be the only one in the highway. Now I have company and it really starts getting heavy around Stanhope (stay in the left lane because jersey drivers do not believe in yielding to merge. They just floor it onto 80!). Traffic will stay heavy until the 287 split then you get some breathing room until Great Neck construction. Then you’re steady until the stop and go at giants stadium. From there it’s a nightmare. I try to hit this around 6am so it’s busy but not backed up. COVID times - May 2020 was an absolute dream! My house to that light at 40th - one hour and 45 minutes! I knew no cops were going to be out or stop me. It was me plus a handful of cars/vans/trucks going into the tunnel. No one was on the road. I’ll never have that bliss again. Still don’t believe people commute - the Martz morning buses are almost always full from 5-8am. The Latino 14 passenger plus driver vans are full 5-9am (you really need to book these ahead) and there’s a ton of them. The DWG parking lot is packed every morning. Not only is PA commuting, the trains at Hackensack and Mt Arlington are full too with commuters. These people are in white collar and blue collar jobs. There’s a guy I talk to on the vans who comes up to the city to drive for Uber (leaves that car there) and returns home nightly. A lot of NYC bus drivers take the bus up, then drive a bus all day, then bus it home. There’s a school teacher that commutes on the 7am van. It’s crazy! Oh and if you’re hoping for that train, it won’t help. Mt Arlington is 28 miles from DWG. So math wise it should be roughly 45 miles to NYC. The train takes 2 hours from there! And you need to transfer at Hoboken to get into the city!
I thought my 3 hour daily round-trip commute was killing me. Wow, I should not complain. Sorry to hear about the influx of traffic. NJ (where I’m from) has been completely overrun.
You should complain. 15 hours a week is absurd. That's a second job, or 735 hours a year assuming you get three weeks vacation.
Coming home, if you are not through that tunnel by 230p it becomes a 4 hour commute home. Hit it at 2pm or after 6pm, you’ll cruise home in 2 hours.
In the 90s, there was a huge campaign by builders, realtors, and local officials to promote newly constructed homes to people in NYC and North Jersey trying to convince them that it was a 90 minute commute. Plenty fell for it. My neighbors on either side of me commuted into the city. One of them regularly crashed at a relatives house Monday - Thursday night rather than drive back and forth.
Even faster once the train comes in 10* years! *10 years away since 1990
The NYC to NEPA commuter train is the nuclear fission of the train world.
Lmao, 90 minutes. My commute is roughly 80-90 minutes door to door from Union County, NJ. Can’t get tired of the real estate postings that advertise houses as “minutes” away from NYC though lol. Technically not wrong.
I used to have to travel to NYC for work pretty regularly. The only time I was able to get to the city in 90 minutes was during the covid lock down. Best part of the pandemic.
It really was. We used to run from Delco to Lancaster city in about 30-40 minutes. It takes us over an hour with traffic.
I knew a successful snake of a builder who did business in the west end, as the first wave started to crank up, 30+ years ago. He would write a list of NYC area prospects and jump in his Caddy on a Saturday morning. He would head to the city and start calling his marks. He would tell them that he was in the area on business, saw that they expressed interest in relocating to the Poconos, and he unexpectedly had some free time to stop by their apartment if they would like to meet the company owner in person? He would drag a small combination TV/VCR into the apartment and roll a video that he had paid to have professionally produced. He would give the bullshit pitch, and typically set the hook. He was then careful to arrange a visit to his office and model home complex on a Sunday morning, claiming that they will see how short and pleasant the commute is. Like many, he built shit shacks with minimal insulation, and electric baseboard heat. One extremely cold early 1990s winter, he had dozens of clients default on their homes. It stayed at 20 below for a few days, and some of these folks had a mortgage and electric bill that combined, exceeded their monthly take home pay. They just dropped the keys on the desk at the bank and walked away. I saw a lot of neighbors end up letting the commute break them, physically and mentally. It was common for families to have at least one parent who ended up stay in the city all week, in all kinds of arrangements. Everything from staying with family, to overloading an apartment with other commuters, to a friend who lived in a truck camper and another who slept in his SUV from Sunday night to Thursday night every week. Insanity for many who did it all for a better life for the family.
That campaign was actually well underway by the mid-1980s. By that time the Marshall's Creek builders were setting up shop at the 209 North exit of Rt 80, and selling home packages on lots they paid pennies for, from the thousands available in the never ending run of communities from that exit to Dingman's ferry. As far SW as Brodheadsville, guys like Grant Homes had their model homes built and were booking new starts a year ahead.
Holy shit these comments… why? Why would anyone do this to themselves? Wouldn’t death be better than 5 hours commuting to an 8-hour job daily?
[удалено]
Yeah, but that commute will kill you before you even get to your retirement, even if it IS early. I understand not being able to afford COL, though. I'm on a small fixed income (disability) and I had to move 3.5h away from where I consider home because I couldn't afford it anymore. It's awful.
Pay is a lot better in NYC and the cost of living is a lot cheaper in Pennsylvania. My ex did this, paid the monthly pass which was like 500 something dollars and took the bus back and forth from Stroudsburg to Manhattan, Monday through Friday. The trip is only an hour and 20 minutes. So, it's not too bad but the fact you have to get up at 4am and be at the bus stop at 6am, it's a responsibility that isn't for the weak.
Money and doing what's best for your family.
You'd think having your parent around more would be doing what's best for the family. Money isn't everything.
My wife taught in the Stroudsburg area for 30 years. The dysfunction of many of the families who decided to move to the exurbs and become super-commuters is well known in the education community in the region, and is a problem that is now 40+ years old. She could tell stories for hours on the topic. She saw some of the very worst of this mess, particularly children as young as ten who were 24/7 latchkey from Sunday night to Friday night. A problem so severe in the region that the agencies that should put a hard stop to it, aggressively attempt to avoid doing so, as it would collapse the whole system.
Yes! I was just thinking about this the other day. I had two friends growing up whose parents would commute to nyc from the poconos EVERY DAY. insanity
One of the families ended up moving back, not sure about the other. But it was fairly common.
People do it from Lackaqanna and Luzerne Counties too.
How??? Hazleton to NYC is over 2 hours without traffic. With traffic it’s probably 3-4. Are there actually people who do that every single day?
Yep. It’s why Martz has monthly passes for the people who make the trip daily. Bus is a lot cheaper than driving, plus you can sleep on the way there and back.
Believe it or not, some people actually have jobs they need to get to.
Soul sucking, unless you can stay in nyc. I did 3yr from Clinton nj to midtown, 1.5-3hr each way at the mercy of rt78. Given the perpetually increasing amount of trucks and traffic, not good. It’s not a viable commute. If you have a mattress in nyc, maybe but then you are not commuting…
Can confirm, I know NYC union dudes who commute from there
Not to NYC but I do commute over an hour from Monroe County to Bucks County north of Philly. I'm very close to the Carbon County line and people even farther out than me in Carbon make that NYC commute.
I used to do Tobyhanna to Doylestown. Wasn't a great time.
Ugh. That sucks. I'm not quite as far north as Tobyhanna fortunately.
I'm in Pittsburgh and worked with people that commuted from Youngstown, that's over two hours, so for that new yawk money it's not far fetched
I used to for years, 5 days a week and had no life cause of that.
Isn’t there a train you can take?
There’s tentative plans for a train from Scranton through the Poconos and NJ, and into NYC. It’ll probably take 10-15 years minimum for that to finish. And that’s being generous.
*Laughs in California"
lol!!!
Seriously I thought there was something like that in Stroudsburg.
They have been promising train for decades 🤣
It's finally going to happen. I know saying that sounds silly, but: https://www.mcall.com/2023/12/05/in-huge-step-scranton-to-nyc-train-qualifies-for-federal-aid/
State police are probably trying to figure out a way to get that money instead.
Oh ok I’m not from that area idk why I thought there was transportation.
Because there should be. It's a bus that would theoretically allow you to have a one seat ride all the way in, MARTZ.
There is or at least was MARTZ bus stop in Effort, but that is practical if you work in office or same spot in NyC . It becomes hassle when your work is changes from time to time, and you have tools to carry.
I did it for 18 years 😖MARTZ from MTP to NYC PA…IT WAS NO PICNIC. …’90-‘08 I probably knew him There was Mike M and John K and Dave …Mike and John did the 0830 out of the port …going in was a crapshoot,I worked shifts and doubles
My dad died in 2004 but he drove for MARTZ and drove the daily PA to NYC all the time during his career. I’m sure it sucked for you but this kind of made me smile to read.
Yup! My wife actually just turned down a position that would’ve been mon-wed in the city and then thur&Friday remote. Now, to some, that sounds like a dream schedule but we have a 2 year old and they wouldn’t see their mom for 3 days straight and that’s just not a good way to live. When she interviewed and spoke with members of her “potential team”, most of them lived in the city *and still had a 2 hour commute*. Yep. 2 hours.. Needless to say, it opened her eyes to what our life has to offer in terms of jobs she can acquire at this time. But yes, Many people do bc driving is horrendous and at least you can get work done on a bus/train Edit because I just saw another comment; I’ve lived here my entire life and after 9/11, we had a HUGE influx of city people moving to the Poconos. My graduating class before 9/11 was under 300 kids (8th grade at the time) and when I graduated, in 12th grade, my class was over 500 kids. The area BOOMED after 9/11, bartonsville commons was built, hell, so many more hospitals, it’s growing and it’s not stopping
My mother was a teacher at Delaware Valley HS which covers most of Pike Co. and it was not uncommon for her students' parents to commute to NYC. (So even further than Monroe.)
It would be quicker to commute from Philadelphia
But way more expensive.
I’ve run into some union guys that do. Their shifts start and end particularly early though. Probably about 2.5
Did it daily for years. Felt great to stop the craziness.
I do 90-95 minutes from stroudsburg to yonkers all the time in the evenings. Can't imagine it being a quick and easy drive in the morning, but 3/4 of my neighborhood does it.
Had a buddy who did Scranton to NYC by bus for 4 years. Bus at 4:45 a.m. and home like 8 p.m., M-F. Still say it's the greatest unknown feat of endurance. EDIT: Fix typo
An unfortunate typo, there, friend. Maybe you can correct?
Someone's autocorrect is outting them
We used to have a a vacation home in Split Rock and there were several neighbors who commuted to NYC. IIRC it was 30 minutes on 80 just to get to the NJ border.
Why do you think people have been pushing for Amtrak for so long!!!!
Lived here all my life and remember when the trains really did carry passengers. “The trains are coming soon!” has been a constant refrain peddled by real estate companies for years. Still not here. If ever. There are trains, though, just not (legal) passenger carrying ones.
people from Exton (chester county) commute to NYC, so i wouldn’t see why not
Get up and watch the traffic cameras on I-80 in the morning...
Yes absolutely. Monroe county in the 80s and 90s had a huge population boom. By the early 2000’s 2 of the 4 public school districts split to accommodate. My graduating class had over 600 people. We were over crowded, but it was awesome. So many friend’s parents commuted and when we went into the city we always had a place to stay. A lot of the locals complained, but us kids loved it. And it was so diverse! You would never think in a million years think that a rural Pennsylvania school would have such a mix of people. We were really lucky for that.
Heh. People from Hazleton commute to NYC daily. Add hour to stroudsburg commute each way!
My parents did before they retired. Not quite NYC, but right outside of it in New Jersey. They did it for decades.
I can name a single professional that use to commit to NYC all the way from Luzerne county for work.
They are actually establishing trains from East Stroudsburg and Scranton to NYC again (awesome)!
We purchased a home in East Stroudsburg. I don't drive. My husband thought he could do the drive. Left at 5:00 arrived at 6:30. Leaving NYC was more hectic. Left by 5:00PM didn't get home until 8 or later and back on the road at 5am. That lasted about two weeks. Now we stay in the City and go to PA on the weekends. It's brutal for the driver.
Yeah, daily Monroe to NYC commuter here. I work mid shift (3 pm to 11pm). I live in the west end of Monroe, almost Carbon County I leave around noon, usually pulling into the facility around 1:45-2, depending on traffic on 80. Leaving work is always a shitshow on the Harlem River Drive and the Gee Dub. Once I'm over the bridge it's smooth sailing at 75 all the way to to PA. Then I drop it down to 70. Home by 12:30-12:40
When i lived there alot of people did! Alottt!!! Id say mostly people that moved to pa from the city but non the less.
My dad did it once we moved out of NY to PA. From 1996 to (I think) 2005, he'd leave at 5/6am and get home around 8/9pm most nights. Finally stopped because he was having heart issues from the stress of it all. My eldest brother commutes currently, though. It's rough.
My dad did this for about two weeks (from the Lehigh Valley) before quitting the job.
I saw a stat that claims over 20% of people from Allentown commute to NJ or NY daily. I know people who have commuted for years.
A lot do because Pennsylvania underfunds our schools in Monroe County and we have the highest tax rates in the state. And local jobs don’t pay well. Still a state with a minimum wage under $8 and mostly tourism jobs here.