Ridski

I live one town down the tracks from where you will be, and Englishmum lives in the town on the other side. With the PATH trains from Hoboken, you can be in and out of NYC within 45 minutes. Nice!

Montville's further north, but the Boonton train runs on the same tracks from Newark Broad Street in and out of NY Penn/Hoboken. From there it splits and either you have to switch at Newark or Montclair State University to get to Boonton and the other local stations. Takes about 1.5 hours overall.

Englishmum

Virtually every morning on the traffic reports on the radio I hear about accidents (mostly eastbound towards NYC) on Route 46 causing major traffic delays and advising drivers to take alternative routes, it's similar going westbound in the evenings. It's probably fine on a good day.

Best of all is to take the trains rather than going by car or bus.....NJ Transit is pretty reliable; my husband walks 3 blocks to our local station (great for us as we don't need a car to just park at the station car park all day). He takes the Midtown Direct train to NY Penn station (confusingly there is also Newark Penn station!) and walks up to his office in Times Square.

If he has meetings in the NY financial district or Jersey City (now resembling a mini-Canary Wharf) he takes the Hoboken train instead and takes the PATH subway train or NY Waterway ferry across the Hudson if going into Manhatten.

Montclair is also a popular place for commuters......unfortunately house prices in Montclair have rocketed and subject to bidding wars in the past 2-3 years as they now have the Midtown direct trains. However I understand they only operate Mon-Friday which isn't much good if one or ones visitors wish to go into NYC at the weekends.

I think if anyone is going to be resident in New Jersey and regularly working in Manhatten it really is in their best interest to live in a town served by a train line. Commuters living in neighbouring towns - where house prices are lower as they have no train service - aren't usually allowed to apply for parking permits at the train stations. The next town to ours, Springfield, just across the county line have to use a jitney (minibus service) instead which drops commuters off at my local station. Service is patchy and it only operates in peak hours Mon-Friday ....not much fun if you want to stay on in the city to have a meal or see a show. Maplewood also has a jitney service to the station as there isn't enough parking spaces for the nos. of commuters applying for parking permits - spaces get full very quickly early in the mornings.

This is my local station:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Hills_(NJT_station)

(weird problem with the link....it does work, honest! just google ; wikipedia + short hills train station and there's loads of info about it!)

agostinism

Well, sometimes they tend to go to extremes on the radio reports otherwise they will find themselves without anything to report. Obviously if you take the GS parkway at 6:30 am chances are you will not find a soul on your way from North to South starting at exit 145 though 131. Try to do the same at 7:30 am (1 hour later) and you will find the true meaning for the phrase "reign of chaos".

So it depends, I have been on these roads for about 10 years and commuted my way from North to South for about 2 years straight, and unless there is rain, or a snow storm the traffic is pretty much predictable. At early and hours is the best time to commute, coming back home the best time are off rush hours and it involves coming home a little late at night, whether you commute by bus or train the story is about the same.

My two cents...

Englishmum

Here is a link with some very useful info on all the towns in New Jersey eg. home sales, property taxes, school 'report cards', health and hospital statistics etc. etc. (it's from the 'Star Ledger' state newspaper website)


http://www.nj.com/news/bythenumbers/