Commuting

The Parks Department doesn't know when a hole that opened up two months ago on the Hudson River Greenway will be repaired.

When we saw that Washington's news-traffic-weather radio station, WTOP, was holding a "Commuter Idle" contest for the worst commute in the DC area -- and rewarding it with $1,000 in gas money -- we couldn't resist. We went looking for the best "Commuter Idyll" -- the trips to work that made people happy, got them fresh air, helped them fit exercise into their day, gave them some extra time to sleep or read, and brought them to work more clear-headed and ready to tackle the day. And Streetsblog readers had lots of great stories to share of ditching long car commutes for transit, biking, or walking. We shared some of them yesterday.

Some of you have some fabulous commutes. Rather than watch the stress-filled minutes and hours tick by stuck in traffic, you go outside, get exercise, and connect with your community.

Before I became your editor here at Streetsblog Capitol Hill, I was a reporter for WTOP, the DC area’s “most-listened-to” radio station. Its traffic reports “on the 8s” helped feed my ire toward auto-centrism – they wasted one out of every 10 minutes of airtime on an unintelligible litany of route numbers and exits. Meanwhile, I only got 35 seconds for actual news stories.

Though subway service edged closer toward normalcy in time for today's morning rush, New Yorkers still faced crowded trains and buses. (Gothamist has photos of commuters lined up for blocks.)

The Census has released a new set of data that helps shed some light on how New Yorkers get to work. Nationally, the percentage of workers driving to work alone edged down, while transit made a tiny gain. New York City saw the same pattern, with carpooling also showing a slight drop.

Brooklyn commuters -- already some of the biggest transit riders in the country -- are opting for transit at ever higher rates. New numbers from the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College, first highlighted by City Limits' Brooklyn Bureau, crunch Census data to reveal the evolving commuting patterns in the borough's 18 community board districts. (To see the citywide breakdown of these numbers by state legislative district, check out Streetsblog's prior coverage.)

Despite severe weekend flooding, city transit was for the most part up and running by the morning rush. Meanwhile, cyclists are tweeting on bike route conditions.

As it turned out, Tuesday's earthquake didn't have much of an impact on New York commuters. Washington, DC, however, was a different story. WAMU (via Transportation Nation) reported "some of the worst traffic jams since 9/11." Meanwhile, dcist noted a surge in bike-share use: