Quinn commutes from Staten Island to experience hour-plus ride

There are nearly 750,000 New Yorkers who have an hour-plus commute to work, according to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Quinn, who is running for mayor, has pushed for ways to improve mass transit, and she decided to experience the long morning haul herself Monday.

She joined Yanela Tamayo on Tamayo's 95-minute commute from her home in Staten Island to her job at the New Yorker Hotel, and invited amNewYork and another newspaper exclusively to join in.

"A lot of New Yorkers who live near the subway take it for granted, but there are a lot who have to really schedule their lives around mass transit," Quinn said.

Here is how their trip went:

"Sometimes I have to get in and after I swipe go to the back of the bus to see if there are any seats left," she says. "[The commute] is long."

After a five-minute walk, Quinn and Tamayo reach the stop and wait for the 1 p.m. bus to show up. While waiting, Quinn talks about some of the ideas she's pushed to improve transit efficiency. Her biggest proposal: mayoral control over the MTA board, who give city commuters a bigger voice for their woes.

"It's not just Staten Island; there are parts of Queens where you have to take the Long Island Rail Road just to get into Manhattan," she says as she waits in the shade.

Quinn, who lives in Manhattan, notes that the outer borough population has grown tremendously over the past few years and says her transit focus would be on neighborhoods outside Manhattan. She says she will push for more bus and light rail lines.

Not all of the conversations during the hour ride are political, especially when the bus passes over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

"I like sailing, but it sounds like a whole lot of work," Quinn says.

"Sometimes the A and the E come on the same track and other times they don't. This is easier," she says.

Tamayo and Quinn continue their small talk on the train but are interrupted several times by straphangers who want to show their support for Quinn's campaign.

Quinn says spending an afternoon in Tamayo's commuter shoes gives her more perspective for her mass transit.

"There was a half an hour that was added on," she says, referring to the time they waited for the bus. "That's a lot of time lost."