Created as part of Columbia Journalism School's Points Unknown Mapping class
Manhattanites, living in the core of the NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, had some of the shorter commutes in the region. The most common duration for a commute was roughly 30 minutes, according to U.S. Census data. In every other borough of New York City - the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island - about 20% of residents said their commute took longer than an hour. In the Bronx, a full quarter of residents said their commutes lasted an hour to an hour and a half.
The counties surrounding New York City, like Putnam and Nassau Counties in New York and Bergen County in New Jersey, had similarly long commutes. Counties that were the furthest away from New York City also had extremely long commutes. Almost 17% and 15% of residents in Pike and Monroe counties respectively reported a commute that was longer than an hour and a half.
The remainder of the region had shorter commutes. In New Jersey's Orange County, nearly half of residents reported a commute shorter than 25 minutes.
Click on the map to view more details about commute times in each county.
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Data source: Table B08303 from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 American Community 5-Year Survey. My analysis and cleaned geojsons can be found on GitHub.