Brooklyn Boro

OPINION: New study finds Brooklyn’s 132,000 healthcare workers have among the city’s worst commutes

February 7, 2018 From Center for an Urban Future
Photo courtesy of Cagle Cartoons
Share this:

A new report by the Center for an Urban Future finds that Brooklyn residents working in the healthcare sector — the borough’s largest industry — have among the worst transit commutes in New York City.

The report shows that Brooklyn health care workers who rely on mass transit face a median commute of 52 minutes, compared to 47 minutes for all workers citywide and 48 minutes for all Brooklyn workers. 

There are more than 132,000 health care workers in Brooklyn. Yet the people working in the borough’s healthcare sector face extremely limited transit options. The study found that in Brooklyn many major hospitals are served by the subways, but because most of the subway lines run in one direction, there are consequences for thousands of health care commutes.

Brooklyn is home to six of the 12 communities in the city with the highest concentration of health care workers. More than 17,700 health care workers live in Canarsie and Flatlands, making it the community with the most health care workers. Other Brooklyn neighborhoods where large numbers of healthcare workers live include: East Flatbush, Farragut & Rugby (#3, home to 12,802 healthcare workers); Flatbush & Midwood (#6, with 10,265 health care workers); Bensonhurst & Bath Beach (#8, with 8,913 health care workers); East New York & Starrett City (#9, with 8,848 health care works); Sheepshead Bay, Gerritsen Beach & Homecrest (#11, with 8,321 health care workers).

The report shows that, since 2011, Brooklyn has experienced some of the fastest growing bus routes in the city, much of that is due to residents commuting to healthcare jobs. Four of the five fastest growing bus routes in Brooklyn provide service to major health care providers. Ridership on the B4, for example, grew 39 percent between 2011 and 2016. That bus originates in Sheepshead Bay, home to the city’s eleventh largest population of health care workers, 10,349 to be exact. The route takes it past Coney Island Hospital, Sheepshead Nursing, and Shore View Nursing and Rehabilitation. Overall, three of the 10 fastest growing bus routes in New York City are located in Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn findings are part of a broader report about the transit challenges facing workers in New York City’s healthcare sector. Titled “An Unhealthy Commute: The Transit Challenges Facing New York City’s Healthcare Sector,” it finds that while most New Yorkers are experiencing transit problems these days, healthcare employees who rely on public transit have the longest median commutes of any workers in the private sector and, in recent decades, have seen their commutes increase at more than double the rate of all workers in the city. The study attributes the lengthy commutes to serious transit gaps in the boroughs outside Manhattan, where health care jobs are growing rapidly but transit options are often strikingly limited.

At a recent press conference to release the report, healthcare leaders, transit advocates and the chairs of the City Council’s transportation and health committees joined the Center for an Urban Future in calling on transit officials, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio to make new investments to improve bus and subway service in the boroughs outside of Manhattan. Speakers included Maria Castaneda, secretary/treasurer of 1199SEIU; Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, chair of the Transportation Committee; Councilmember Mark Levine, chair of the Health Committee; Tabitha Decker, deputy executive director, TransitCenter; Stephanie Burgos-Veras, senior organizer of Riders Alliance; and Jonathan Bowles, executive director of Center for an Urban Future. 

“All New Yorkers have good reason to be frustrated with the city’s transit system right now, but the city’s healthcare workers arguably have it worst,” says Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, an independent think tank that focuses on expanding economic opportunity and growing the economy in NYC. “And the problems aren’t only related to subway delays and overcrowded trains. The reality is that bus and subway service in the four boroughs outside Manhattan simply hasn’t kept pace with massive increases in the number of New Yorkers working and living there.” 

According to the report, which was funded by TransitCenter, the transit challenges facing healthcare workers stem from a handful of factors: 

Many of the city’s hospitals, urgent care centers, nursing homes and doctors’ offices are located in neighborhoods outside of Manhattan with severely limited transit options. 

  • As one example, Interfaith Medical Center in Bedford-Stuyvesant is only a short walk from the A and C trains. But while a majority of the hospital’s employees live in Brooklyn, most reside in more affordable neighborhoods south of the hospital that aren’t on the same subway line. Of the hospital’s 1,400 employees, 119 live in Canarsie and 69 live in Flatlands — resulting in commutes that typically require two bus rides or one lengthy bus ride and a considerable walk.

  • 32 percent of major health care employers in NYC are more than 8 blocks from a subway stop.

  • Nearly 320,000 healthcare jobs — 65 percent of the city’s total — are in the four boroughs outside Manhattan. 

A significant share of the city’s healthcare workers rely on the bus to get to their jobs — and bus service across the five boroughs is unreliable and does not run frequently enough.  

  • There are 80,706 daily bus commuters in the city’s health care sector, more than in any other industry. 

  • More workers in health care take the bus to work every day (80,706) than do all retail and food service workers combined (78,291).

The study includes over a dozen achievable policy recommendations for improving transit for the health care sector and all New Yorkers. They include: 

  • Make new investments in transit service in the four boroughs outside of Manhattan. 

  • Enact Fix NYC or some other congestion pricing proposal, and require a key portion of the new funds to support outer borough transit investments. 

  • Launch a bus rescue plan to improve the speed and reliability of bus service. 

The full report, titled “An Unhealthy Commute: The Transit Challenges Facing New York City’s Healthcare Sector,” can be read here: https://nycfuture.org/research/an-unhealthy-commute. 

The Center for an Urban Future (CUF) is a leading New York City-based think tank that generates smart and sustainable public policies to reduce inequality, increase economic mobility, and grow the economy. In 2011, CUF published “Behind the Curb,”  a report which showed that transit service in the boroughs outside of Manhattan has not kept pace with the growth in population, jobs and transit ridership that was occurring in these boroughs. For more information about CUF, visit https://nycfuture.org/.

 

Subscribe to our newsletters


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment