WEST WINDSOR: Township makes ‘worse commute’ list

By Kristine Snodgrass, Staff Writer
   WEST WINDSOR — A long commute to work has become a way of life for many West Windsor residents; it’s something they’re willing to sacrifice for the quality of life in their community.
   But it may come as a surprise their commute times are among the highest in the entire country, according to data recently released by the Census Bureau. Residents have the ninth-longest commute in the entire country, at an average of 42.1 minutes each way, according to the data.
   But to those residents who commute to New York City on the train, 42 minutes doesn’t seem too bad.
   ”I would love that to be true,” said Andy Lupo, a West Windsor resident and chairman of the Parking Authority.
   Residents are willing to accept a long commute time for the benefits of living in the former farming community, he said.
   ”We live in a beautiful community… We have open space. We have good recreational facilities for our kids, a phenomenal school district,” he said. “And you’re very, very close to a regional train line as well as major roads.”
   Nobody is fan of the hour-long trip to Penn Station in Manhattan, but it’s “tolerable,” he said.
   ”There are a lot of nice things about a nice easy ride where one can fall asleep.”
   After 25 years of commuting to Manhattan, taking the train has become a comfortable routine, he said.
   ”You’ve got your friends, you have the mini conversations in the morning when the conductor takes the ticket, doze off, get caught up in the paper,” he said. “Everybody pretty much keeps to themselves.”
   Princeton Professor Alain Kornhauser, who teaches and researches on transportation, said West Windsor is a typical “bedroom community” where there are few job opportunities that would support the cost of living in the township.
   As a result, not many residents have five or 10 minute commutes that would bring down the average commute time, he said. Those people who do work in West Windsor likely live someplace else, he added.
   The township is at the borderline distance people are willing to commute to Philadelphia, New York and other urban centers in order to live in a small, safe community with good schools, he said.
   ”It looks like, hey, this is heaven,” he said.
   The busy Princeton Junction Train Station, which averaged 7,482 passenger boardings weekdays last year, gives commuters an option that seems more acceptable than a car, he said, because people can read or work.
   ”I think that, in the end, it’s more tolerable to do the long commute in a train and, in fact, in these situations, the train is the short time alternative during the rush hours,” he said.
   West Windsor resident Robert Bacall recently set up a home office, in part because of the draining commute. For 14 years, he commuted to his office in Manhattan daily to work as a photography agent.
   ”There’s very little job opportunity locally to sustain anybody who is living and paying the taxes here,” he said. “You almost have to go elsewhere to find that kind of income.”
   While working in Manhattan, he planned for an 80-minute commute from his home, a half mile from the train station in West Windsor to his office near Penn Station.
   While taking the train can sometimes be a “nightmare,” people are willing to make the sacrifice to live in West Windsor, he said.
   ”I think they put up with it here for the quality of life when you get off the train,” he said. “That was the reason for me.”
   People who want to send their kids to the township’s top-ranked public school system also tolerate the commute, he said. It was a key part of his decision to move to the township, he added.
   ”People do it because they want their kids to have a better way of life,” he said.
   Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said he was not surprised by the data with the number of people who work in New York City. But there’s certainly room for improvement in traffic circulation in the township, which will require cooperation with the state and county, he said.
   ”There’s no way as a township we can do all of this by ourselves,” he said.
   In response to the data, Sen. Bill Baroni (R-Mercer, Middlesex) called for a refocus on transportation improvements, including the widening of Route 1.
   ”As any resident of West Windsor, Plainsboro or South Brunswick knows, travelling on Route 1 is a nightmare. Until the road is widened, and more mass transit options become available, this is going to be a problem that’s only going to get worse,” Sen. Baroni said in a statement. “Too many of our moms and dads are spending their evenings on Route 1 instead of at soccer practice, family dinners, or at home.”
   In the study, West Windsor fell behind three other New Jersey municipalities: Marlboro Township, in Monmouth County, with an average 46 minutes commute; Vernon Township, in Sussex County, with 43.4 minutes; and Manalapan Township, in Monmouth County, with 42.7 minutes. At the top of the list was Bristow, Va., with an average commute of 46.3 minutes.
   The data was collected between 2005 and 2007 as part of the Census’ American Community Survey, which selects areas with populations greater than 20,000. The figure is the average time “spent waiting for public transportation, picking up passengers in car pools and time spent in other activities related to getting to work,” according to the study.