The car is $528/mo lease? Or is that the payment to own?

Thanks for the detailed numbers. I love seeing the comparison.

Oh it drives me totally insane. The car works out to being more expensive for sure though in my case.

$438/mo for NJT Rail (which includes unlimited bus access) and $110.25/mo for unlimited PATH. So $548.25/mo for transit.

My car is $528/mo. Insurance is $113/mo. Gas based on my last fill-up is $66/mo. Then there’s yearly maintenance costs. It’s a Honda so it doesn’t need much but let’s say $300/year so $25/mo. That’s a total of $732/mo.

The car ends up being $183.75/mo more than transit. I’d love to take the train and not have to focus on driving but the time lost in between is just too much for me. With the car, I can make it back to JC in time to go to events going on here or in NYC. Getting back after 7pm makes that harder.

This isn't really true. Commuting in a car out of Hudson County isn't nearly as bad as commuting in. There's a ton of local traffic but once you get to the true reverse commute on 78, for instance, it's pretty easy. The way back in can be a bit worse, but is only really bad in December with more people headed into NYC after work.

Just ranting here, but how broken are we that in a transit rich community, a simple commute like yours is either ~45 min in a car or 2h15m across two separate systems and probably 3 transfers?

It's probably cheaper to have the car, when you consider how expensive an NJT monthly and a PATH monthly would be.

Yeah it's ~25 min from Greenville to get off the highway with no traffic. It's ~35 min from Downtown. Traffic definitely can add up. I used to do Florham Park to Hoboken and I'd budget 50 min and regularly use it all - not even during commuting hours.

Doubling down on this one. Edgewater and Weehawken for a single person looking for a social scene is...a mistake.

You definitely want JC. Maybe it’s just personal experience but something weird or bad always manages to happen to me when I end up in Hoboken. As others have said, it’s pretty fratty and straight there.

I’d say look at a cheaper apartment and consider getting a car. I commute a little bit further than Madison for 3 days a week and despite all my qualms with cars, it is far faster than the 2 hours 15 minutes each way that I’d need to do if I stuck with PATH+NJT. Plus it comes in handy when going outside the NYC transit footprint. Alternate side parking is not really a pain in the ass when you have to move it 3 days a week anyway. It ends up being more than what transit would cost me per month but I did the 2-hour-each-way transit commute in Chicago and I don’t think I’d go back…

I’d recommend near Grove St or Journal Square cuz those neighborhoods are the two that have PATH stops with both midtown and downtown service to/from them 24/7.

One other comment: you might need to reevaluate not having a car. I'm a huge no-car advocate, love public transit, and I think you can live wonderfully in Hoboken or JC without one. But commuting to Madison on public transit is... harder. Driving (reverse commute) to Madison is reliably ~40 min during rush hours unless there's some big accident (happens about once a month). Your commute on the train is likely better from Hoboken than JC as there's a NJT terminal there, but oddly might be easier from NY Penn Station. Downtown JC might be more like 90 min and something truly insane like PATH to Hoboken transfer to NJT to transfer at Secaucus to Madison.

Newark Broad Street might actually get you the commute you want on the train (frequent service, 30 min to Madison) but I have no idea about the neighborhood.

This is accurate and it's important to separate uptown Hoboken (broadly: strollers and couples) and downtown/PATH adjacent Hoboken (broadly: bro-ish).

Having lived in both places, a lot of Hoboken's "fratty stuff" is actually from people in the suburbs driving in and bro-ing out. It was weird how many outsiders would come in on Thrs/Fri/Sat nights to the same ~5 bars. I don't know why they wouldn't keep going to NYC, but I guess they wanted the scene they got in Hoboken. This definitely happens in Downtown JC as well but not nearly as big of an influx.

For the OP, regarding JC - there's an excellent sticky that addresses a lot of what you're looking for (and plenty of warnings about looking for $3k rent in a new/high rise/luxury). I'm not sure if Downtown JC is in your budget, but if it is, I find Hamilton Park/Harsimus Cove/Van Vorst to be more low key and friendly, Newport to be more transient (out of town transplants who turn over more often/are just looking for clean apts with good commutes and little community), Paulus Hook like Newport but with slightly different cachet. In all of these places you will find lots of families, especially with young kids, it is mostly white and English speaking but far from homogeneous, and as LGBT friendly as anywhere in NYC, even if the LGBT population isn't as high as say, Chelsea. In those ways, it feels very much like Manhattan or inner Brooklyn even if the demographics are a bit different (these comparisons may or may not help you as someone from CA).

Go to Patterson.

As a separate note, it's a little harder to commute out of Hoboken than Jersey City. From JC, it takes me about 45 minutes to get to my gig in Florham Park, which is right next to Madison. I've left from Hoboken and had it take more than an hour.

LOL. Yea if you didn't have the Manhattan skyline right in front of you you'd feel like you were deep in central NJ or somewhere.

I never heard that adage, and I didn’t grow up in NJ. If I were 26, single, and childless, I’d have no interest in working in Madison. Given the parameters, JC and Hoboken make no sense.

This a million times over.

That is a horrendous commute with or without a car. I’m sorry. I speak from experience.

Jersey City. Get a car. I recently moved here and Hoboken is 10 minutes away.

Thanks a lot

Thank you!!

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Efes

Yeah, I guess that’s fair. A rough commute is ROUGH. I just don’t think it’s what OP is really looking for, and I like the adage of “live where you want to wake up on Saturday morning.”

If you’re commuting from Hudson County by car to Madison, be prepared to spend 1.5-2 hours per day sitting in traffic (easily more on bad days). Whatever JC or Hoboken have to offer, you’re not going to benefit from it on weekdays. If it were me, I’d rather sit in the car on weekends with less traffic. Also, keep in mind Morristown has a train to NYC.

The commute to madison is annoying, try looking at morristown, much better

Hispanic, lesbian, and single in JC! Based on what you mentioned, I'd recommend Jersey City for you, specifically downtown JC, but I'd like to reiterate what others are saying about checking the NJ Transit commute to Madison. If you decide to commute to your job using NJ Transit rail, you're gonna want to be close to Hoboken Terminal.

Ok so hear me out. I’m not originally from Jersey or the Northeast. My native Jersey friends were hyping up Morristown for a long time. I finally went and I was like “this is it?” It was cool but I can’t imagine living there moving from out of state. It felt like just a suburb with a contained Main Street that has some lively bars.