Heh - I used to live in Greenpoint and would reverse commute up to Queens Plaza to avoid the "G to the L to the BDFQ" into midtown...<p>On the contrary, Hoboken - where I now live - has a wealth of options to commute into both midtown and downtown NYC. Within a few blocks of my apartment: a subway trip of less than 20 mins to either Wall Street or 32nd (Midtown); ferry (a very pleasant 40 min trip to my office in the 40s); bus about 30 mins to midtown depending upon traffic. I love the ferry - it is the least efficient and most expensive option. I take it about 30% of the time to enjoy the river in the morning or evening.<p>This kind of access to NYC has made Hoboken (and downtown Jersey City) a much more desirable location than other small cities in the area. And I have more options than many of my colleagues in Brooklyn or Queens - and a quicker commute than some colleagues in the Upper West side of Manhattan.<p>Go a few miles further into NJ and commuting becomes a mess. The first time I googlemapped our new datacenter in the Meadowlands of NJ - I was pleasantly surprised that it was ~5 miles from NYC office and roughly the same from my Hoboken apartment. And ~1 mile from a transit stop.<p>Thought I could ride my bike but the trip is through MadMax NJ wasteland, unmaintained roads on which semis rule and on which there are no sidewalks. I am not brave enough. Even the wildlife is scary - a giant groundhog grumpily rules the front gate area of the datacenter. And those 8 foot tall reeds are everywhere - I can just imagine full of rats and albino sewer alligators of immense size. I take a $15 cab from the nearest light rail stop.
Also in the category of boroughs hard to reach from Brooklyn without a car or undue delay: Staten Island. Today, three of its four bridges prohibit pedestrians and none have subway connections. One of those bridges (to NJ) used to have a pedestrian and cycle way, but a few years after the Streetcar Scandal it was removed as part of an expansion (!) orchestrated by Robert Moses. Look him up to find out more about the bizarre history of mass transit in mid-20th century NYC.
There's an interesting follow-up article which attempts to debunk the "Great American Streetcar Scandal"<p><a href="http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/06/be-careful-how-you-refer-so-called-great-american-streetcar-scandal/5771/" rel="nofollow">http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/06/be-careful-ho...</a>
There is a delightful movie called Who Framed Roger Rabbit in which the villain is attempting just this: buying trolley lines to build "highways, as far as the eye can see".<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/</a>
There's an excellent podcast episode of 99% Invisible which discusses the analogous thing that happened to the Red Car in Los Angeles.<p><a href="http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-red-car-conspiracy/" rel="nofollow">http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-r...</a>
As a tramway lover that photo of stacked, decommissioned streetcars made me cry a little on the inside. Just a couple of hours ago, as I was preparing to enter a tramway in my (East-European) city, I saw a 4-year old pointing to the two tramways that were waiting in the station and telling his grandma how great that was. Streetcars (and trains) are just magical.
Thoughts that occurred to me as I read this:<p>1. Why were privately owned mass transit systems the norm in the first half of the 20th century, and why is that now considered "impossible" today?<p>2. Why is it OK for government to "monopolize mass transit", which they have done almost everywhere, but a criminal "conspiracy" when four private entities try to do it?
There are actually some "Chinatown-to-Chinatown" shuttles from the eighth ave in Brooklyn to Flushing, Queens in thirty minutes or so for two-fifty.
Funny not to mention Robert Moses in an article about this topic.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses</a>
> Ever try to get from Brooklyn to Queens, two of the most populated boroughs of New York City? Without a car, it's nearly impossible, as most subway lines require one to go through Manhattan first.<p>Could someone explain this to those of us who have never been to New York and whose only knowledge of its subways comes from TV and movies?<p>The impression I get from subway travel as depicted on TV and in movies is that trains run frequently enough that trips requiring changing trains aren't a big deal. So what's the problem is you have to go to Manhattan then change trains to go to Queens?