Jamaica Commuters

Where Jamaica Residents Work and
How They Get There

The distance between the black-bordered area on the right outlining Jamaica and the sea of blue showing where most Jamaica residents go to work in Manhattan only begins to show the journeys faced by the residents of this eastern Queens neighborhood. While Jamaica is an job center in its own right - employers include colleges, a major retail hub, a medical center and government offices - most residents leave the neighborhood to work, and more than one-third of them drive.

Mass transit commutes tend to be extremely long: Of those who take the subway to work more than half have a trip longer than one hour each way, and three in four take 45 minutes or more to get to work. Faster rail options exist - the AirTrain to JFK, and the Long Island Rail Road to Manhattan - but are too expensive for low-wage workers. Only 3 percent of commuters use the Long Island Rail Road as their main way of getting to work within New York City. And lack of capacity on the LIRR's main line means that reverse-commuting options to Long Island are limited.