[jandrese]

To go beyond that, cities that grew after the 1940s often have relatively poor transit access to the "new" sections. For example, the DC Metro system is only halfway through finally opening up service to the enormous northern North Virginia area and utterly failed to even provide halfassed streetcar service to Alexandria. New York City's subway system doesn't attempt to cross over into Jersey or even to the eastern half of Queens.

[warfangle]

> New York City's subway system doesn't attempt to cross over into Jersey or even to the eastern half of Queens.

There are other systems that do, though: PATH (for points immediately across the Hudson), NJTransit (commuter rail to a lot of NJ), LIRR (commuter rail to Long Island & Queens) and MetroNorth (commuter rail to points north in NY and CT).

Given how long it takes to ride the subway to the farther reaches of Queens (e.g., Jamaica), I can't imagine how long it would take to commute to Manhattan via subway from, say, Bayside Queens (which is served by LIRR).