4 ms·

It's pretty far from a decent airport. HPN and SWF have flights to only a few destinations and the only mass transit that services them are buses. Poughkeepsie

It's pretty far from a decent airport. HPN and SWF have flights to only a few destinations and the only mass transit that services them are buses. Poughkeepsie to EWR is no less than 2.5 hours on public transportation and 1.5 hours by car. About the same for JFK. Newburgh and Fishkill are even worse.

saalweachter 9y ago
Yeah, I'm real curious how much that factors into things. I think the "no mass transit" problem isn't really a real problem; most American cities don't have mass transit that is good enough for people visiting from another office to use. I've tried visiting Mountain View with and without renting a car, and it's technically possible, but I gave up on not. Buses are perfectly cromulent forms of mass transit, but tend to be too scary for visitors to use (buses can go anywhere, and it is very confusing/stressful to try to figure out if you are at the right stop and if the bus that just stopped is the right bus, when you are unfamiliar with the system). I can see the objection to not being a hub airport from both ends. As a normal traveler, SWF is great: easy to get to, park, and navigate, not too expensive, and pretty much anywhere I'm going is one connection away. From the perspective of a company, yeah, I can see it being a bigger negative. The VPs may not personally want to take non-direct flights, the costs might be more noticeable, and if your destinations are also second-tier airports, you're now talking probably two connections. Especially for what's supposed to be their #2 office, a hub airport may just be a hard constraint. The upper Hudson Valley probably is too far from New York to really mooch off of its infrastructure, but the lower Hudson Valley (Peekskill, Croton Harmon) probably isn't; however, not coincidentally, you've got a lot more empty office parks in the upper HV cities you mentioned.

saalweachter 9y ago

Yeah, I'm real curious how much that factors into things. I think the "no mass transit" problem isn't really a real problem; most American cities don't have mass transit that is good enough for people visiting from another office to use. I've tried visiting Mountain View with and without renting a car, and it's technically possible, but I gave up on not. Buses are perfectly cromulent forms of mass transit, but tend to be too scary for visitors to use (buses can go anywhere, and it is very confusing/stressful to try to figure out if you are at the right stop and if the bus that just stopped is the right bus, when you are unfamiliar with the system). I can see the objection to not being a hub airport from both ends. As a normal traveler, SWF is great: easy to get to, park, and navigate, not too expensive, and pretty much anywhere I'm going is one connection away. From the perspective of a company, yeah, I can see it being a bigger negative. The VPs may not personally want to take non-direct flights, the costs might be more noticeable, and if your destinations are also second-tier airports, you're now talking probably two connections. Especially for what's supposed to be their #2 office, a hub airport may just be a hard constraint. The upper Hudson Valley probably is too far from New York to really mooch off of its infrastructure, but the lower Hudson Valley (Peekskill, Croton Harmon) probably isn't; however, not coincidentally, you've got a lot more empty office parks in the upper HV cities you mentioned.