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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

Grab a subway map of Queens.

The good thing about NYC is that no one needs to drive to work.

The E/M/F/R tunnels are already some of the most congested, most delayed, least pleasant segments in the entire city. As much as I welcome Amazon's move, I don't envy the poor suckers who have to ride in and out of Queens.

The "interesting" thing about that location is that it actually isn't especially especially convenient for commutes to/from places where young well-paid techies would normally choose to live.

Out of curiosity, where do you think young well-paid techies live in the city?

Because I'm a young well-paid techie, and I live off of the G line in Brooklyn, which this move would definitely affect.

Greenpoint, bushwick, wburg, bed-study, park slope, Clinton hill, LES.

Greenpoint is directly south of LIC. You can walk there in 30 minutes.

I assume this is a big incentive to improve those lines and Amazon will hopefully lobby for such. Similar to their support for public transportation in Seattle.

Living in the west side rail yards, and commuting to LIC would be a very pleasant commute in the morning and not so bad during the afternoon.

It is surprisingly convenient the largest private real estate project in the US is conviniently located to Amazon's new HQ.

I’d also look east of Long Island City. Probably cheaper than Manhattan. Pick a bad area that will gentrify.

The MTA will be able to run more trains once they modernized their signaling equipment.

They are using 100 year old equipment:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mta-why-has-the-nyc-subway-gone...

And the alternative is getting the G up from Brooklyn...

I live here. LIC subway access is terrible. Not driving to work in NYC means you either work in Manhattan or you are taking a bus, probably more than one.

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