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Long known as a bastion of car culture with a dearth of public transit, the Hudson Valley has lingered for years on the far edge of New York City’s slowly expanding mass transportation universe. Now, however, a fast-growing number of local commuters are conducting a love affair with buses and trains. And their affection is mounting.
In 2006, 14.7 million riders used the Metro-North train to the big city along the Hudson Valley line, up from 8.4 million in 1984. This year alone, daily ridership on Metro-North to New York City is up almost 4 percent from last year, according to figures provided by Dan Brucker, a spokesman for Metro-North.
And that trend is continuing to climb, especially locally. For while total ridership is up 27 percent on the railroad since 1995, in the Mid-Hudson region, use has increased by 57 percent since 1995. And since 1984, the year after Metro-North was created, use has increased overall by 74 percent. But it is up a whopping 225 percent in the Hudson Valley since 1984.
“There was a time when we were told everyone would be telecommuting,” said Brucker “And they are telecommuting. But guess what? They are telecommuting on the train with their laptops and cell phones.”
“People are traveling ever farther and ever longer than ever before,” said Brucker.
And it’s not just on trains. Buses are also an increasingly popular option for travel. Since 1997, the Adirondack Trailways buses serving the Hudson Valley from New York City have doubled their daily schedule of runs between Kingston and New York, and today run a total of 20 round trips on weekdays. Additionally, the bus line has added stops in Rosendale and at the park and ride facility in New Paltz.
“We have seen very good growth in the commuter market,” said Anne Noonan, vice president for communications for Adirondack Trailways. “There’s quite a number of reasons,” she noted, saying that: “Unfortunately, 9-11 gave us quite a bump to ridership.”
But Noonan added that the reasons people ride the bus are self-evident once a person begins using the expanded service. “It’s much less expensive and much more environmentally friendly than cars,” she said. “And it’s much more convenient; you can sit and do work or read or just relax, none of which you could do if you were driving.”
One Kingston station attendant for Trailways revealed the reasoning behind a corporate strategy that seems to be working. “There are a lot of people around here going to the city, one way or another,” he said. “We’re trying to get them off the trains and onto buses.”
It’s all how you look at it
Even without passenger traffic from across the river, Metro-North has enough to handle from rising ridership on the Dutchess side. The Poughkeepsie station is among the busiest on the Hudson line.
Poughkeepsie resident Jim Woehlke is one of those whose tolerance for a train commute has actually grown over 13 years. Although it takes more than three hours each day, he describes his commute as “humane,” at least in relation to some of his less fortunate traveling brethren.
“The people who have the biggest commute have only just begun when they hit Grand Central Station and then they might have to take a shuttle down to Wall Street that can take them an extra 30 to 40 minutes,” said Woehlke, the in-house general consul for the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (NYSSCPA), which, on 34th Street, is a veritable stone’s throw from the train station.
In fact, time-wise, some of Woehlke’s co-workers who dwell within the city limits have a longer commutes than he does.
“There are people who live in Queens or Staten Island who have to take different modes of transportation, like the ferry, bus and subway. That doesn’t lend itself to doing other stuff,” he said.
The “other stuff” to which Woehlke refers, including working on a laptop computer, reading or watching a DVD, are common activities among his fellow passengers on early morning and evening Metro-North rides.
At his midtown job, Woehlke provides legal advice that facilitates the governance of a society that provides accountants with mandated professional educational programs, administers an ethics code and facilitates a peer-firm review program for its 30,000 members, 26,000 of whom are CPAs.
Although “celebrate” may be too strong a word, Woehlke just marked his 13th year taking the 6:45 a.m. express train to Manhattan every weekday. Although he makes the daily trip, Woehlke said the commute is harder for his wife, Kristal.
“In our family, the person who bears the brunt of the long commute is my wife, who doesn’t have a spouse who is close by in case of an emergency,” he said.
It also means that the 52-year-old Woehlke potentially has less time to spend with his wife and five children than someone with a shorter trip to work. He said whether that is healthy is largely a product of one’s expectations.
“The family I grew up in, my dad really left the bulk of the child-rearing to my mother, so my expectations for being a dad entails pretty long hours at work, while my wife lived in South Dakota and her dad lived close enough to walk home for lunch every day. He was a much more present father than I am to our kids,” he said.
Woehlke’s 21-year-old son Thomas remembered when the family lived in suburban Washington and his father had only a one-hour commute to work.
“The biggest difference is that I don’t see him as much since we moved, but we make more use of the time here and we do more things together than when we lived in Virginia,” said the younger Woehlke.
Although the commute involves sacrifice, the rewards of working as a lawyer in New York City are also tangible.
“In my line of work, coming to New York City was important in being able to raise my family. When we moved to Poughkeepsie, the real estate market was in a slump and we were able to get a lot of house for the money — and financially, it will have turned out to be a smart move by the time I retire. Every decision entails advantages and sacrifices,” he said.
The increasing volume of commuters has engendered an upgrade in the railroad’s equipment, meaning the commute is more reliable now than it has ever been. The change has been noticed by passengers, further adding to the railroad’s mounting cachet.
“One day, more than 10 years ago, during the winter, I was taking the train home when it broke down about a half-mile from the Poughkeepsie station,” said Woehlke. “We had to wait on the train for an hour while another train came and put down a bridge so we could evacuate and ride the last half-mile home.”
Those days, he says, are thankfully in the past.
Maybe you’ve thought of carpooling to your job in Westchester, but you’re worried you might be called on to work overtime, or to leave the office suddenly to care for a sick child. The fear of being stranded at work is one of the biggest deterrents to ridesharing.
Age-old fear of commitment and fear of trying something new are other common deterrents, according to John Lyons, president and chief executive officer of MetroPool, the division of the New York State Department of Transportation that oversees rideshare programs in the Hudson Valley.
But MetroPool is easing apprehensions with improvements to its rideshare programs. Participants who register with MetroPool are eligible for a “guaranteed ride” benefit at no cost: the agency promises to arrange for a quick ride at any time should the need arise. For the commitment-phobic, the Internet has made it possible to share an occasional commute without committing five days a week. Commuters fill out basic information, like location and destination, at www.metropool.com and are matched with potential rides.
“We promote just trying it once,” said Lyons. “It’s a lot easier just doing it once in a while.”
In Dutchess County, U.S. Census data shows that just under 10 percent of the commuting population, or about 12,000 people, carpool to work, while the vast majority of Dutchess commuters — 79 percent — drive alone. Most Dutchess commuters are headed south on the Taconic to Westchester and New York City or east on I-84 to Connecticut.
While most people choose to go it alone, the cost of doing so is surprisingly high. The Internal Revenue Service estimates it costs 48.5 cents per mile to operate the average car, accounting for gasoline and wear and tear. That means a commuter traveling 55 miles per day round-trip would spend $27 per day, or $560 per month. Carpooling slashes that cost in half, while a vanpool of six to 12 people costs only $104 monthly.
MetroPool works with both employers and individuals to coordinate rides, but most commonly it makes arrangements with large corporations.
“The challenge of matching people drives us to larger employers or office parks,” said Lyons. “Smaller businesses match themselves pretty well. Large corporations have more activity and volume,” he said.
Options in Dutchess County include:
• Carpooling,
• Vanpooling,
• Shuttling to a bus station,
• Shuttling to the train from the Route 9D Fishkill Transportation Center.
Many people like the social interaction carpooling provides, but increasingly people are doing it for the environment as well. Six out of seven chief air pollutants come from automobiles, and car emissions cause acid precipitation, destroying fish and plant life. Leakage from vehicle air-conditioning systems is a leading cause of ozone layer destruction.
“This gives people something they can actually do and say they are doing,” said Lyons.
If cost-savings and environmental benefits aren’t enough to get you to get you out of the comfort zone of your own car, MetroPool’s carpooling program, NuRide, offers reward-points for ridesharing, redeemable at many participating retail stores and services.
MetroPool matches commuters, while leaving all the arrangements to individuals. Lyons said commuters typically agree to meet at a Park-and-Ride location for their first several commutes together — there are six locations in Dutchess County (see below) — while often making adjustments as they get to know each other.
For more information visit www.metropool.com or www.nuride.com, or call 1-800-FIND-RIDE.
Park and Ride Locations:
• I-84 at Lime Kiln Road, East Fishkill
• Taconic Parkway at Route 52, East Fishkill
• Route 9 at Dutch Reformed Church, Hyde Park
• Taconic Parkway at Todd Hill Road Lagrangeville
• Taconic Parkway at Bulls Head Road, Stanford
• Route 9D Fishkill Transportation Center, Wappingers Falls
For New York City commuter Carol Pauli of Middle Hope in Orange County, the Newburgh-Beacon Ferry affords a chance to reconnect with her surroundings.
“You remember that you live on a river,” said Pauli of the 10-minute-chunk of her daily commute spent aboard the Newburgh-Beacon Ferry. Operated by NY Waterway under contract with the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the ferry has been in operation since 2005, allowing west bank passengers to travel from Newburgh to Grand Central Station in approximately 90 minutes.
Taking the ferry to the Metro-North Hudson Line express train provides a peaceful moment before taking a plunge into the daily grind. “It feels a little less regimented than the rest of your day. It’s sort of like a vacation,” said Pauli.
During the summer, Pauli, a professor at Marist College, teaches legal writing in a special program for high-schoolers at Columbia University. At daybreak, she arrives at the Newburgh waterfront to catch the 7:07 a.m. ferry. The ferry docks at Beacon, mere steps from the Metro-North station.
The ferry makes six trips in the morning, eight in the evening. The first boat leaves Newburgh at 5:41 a.m. The last leaves Beacon at 8:41 p.m. In Newburgh, it comes into port at Washington and Front streets.
Pauli and her fellow commuters mount a long metal ramp that leads to the dual-tiered ferry. The West New York carries 149 passengers on two decks: below, seating in an enclosed, climate-controlled area is available; atop, commuters are offered a captain’s-eye view of the Hudson landscape, exposed to the blue-gray sky.
For commuters, ferry travel offers several advantages. “It’s just gorgeous,” said Pauli, “and then there’s the convenience. You don’t pay for parking; you don’t pay for the bridge …” Parking permits at Beacon number in the hundreds greater than actual capacity and competition for spots can be fierce, whereas parking at Newburgh is plentiful and free.
Taking the ferry saves commuters in other ways. A one-month train UniTicket currently costs commuters $321 – with ferry service, it’s just $331. UniTicket holders are covered under the MTA’s Guaranteed Ride Home program, which offers customers taxi service from Beacon Station back to the Newburgh parking area when scheduled ferry service is not available during certain weekday, off-peak hours.
Recently, a literal example of the division between the regular commute and the slower-paced world was made manifest at the end of the Newburgh dock, said Pauli. “Someone with a fishing pole was standing at the end of the dock. As we walked past, he nodded, saying: ‘Follow-the-leader, follow-the-leader; nine-to-five, nine-to-five,’” she said.
Non-commuters can travel from shore-to-shore for one dollar each way. “I see people taking the ferry just for fun,” said Pauli. NY Waterways reports approximately 2,000 passenger trips per week on the West New York. One commuter’s average workday includes two passenger trips.
Pauli catches the 6:27 p.m. ferry on her return from the city. After less than 10 minutes on the top deck, with a gentle river breeze blowing through her hair, Pauli was refreshed. “This was the best part of the day,” she said, alighting from the Newburgh ramp. Her husband, John, was right on time, waiting in the family car to take her home.
