Crown Heights close to Nostrand to Grand Central should take you 30-45min, and you can have a semi-luxury building or renovated apartment for the same price as the author of the article posted. There are other similar neighborhoods in BK. UES or East Harlem could work too.

If you don't mind a bit of grungy asthetics, the areas near the JMZ trains just on the other side of Manhattan in Williamsburg and the Bed Stuy/Bushwick border have a relatively fast commute - much faster than far more expensive neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

For example, it's like 10m from Marcy Ave to Essex St. in the LES. The J goes downtown in the Wall St. area while the M takes much of the same path as the F along 6th Ave, and both of those trains follow the same lines up until Myrtle-Broadway. In fact, it's literally two stops from Essex St. during rush hour as the J runs express (sometimes it sees itself as a Z).

JMZ will be impossible to get into above Mytrle-Broadway come April. Maybe even above Gates.

That's potentially very true. That said, numerous lines are going to get squeezed as well, the A and C in particular.

Are you commuting into midtown? If so, there's a reason Astoria is exceptionally popular.

I live in Brooklyn, east of Prospect Park, and am on the 5. I can also take the Q/B which are express to Manhattan and switch to the 6 or 5 at 14th. My commute is to Midtown, and it takes about 35 minutes.

For many years, I lived in Westchester, took metro-north to grand central (30 minutes on an express train), then the 4/5/6 to work (10 minutes. 15 when things were slow).

I looked at this before leaving NYC and the problem is that once you add the time to get to the metro-north station, time to switch from metro north to subway, time from subway to office, and time waiting for trains, elevators, etc, you can easily have a 75-90 minute commute. And that's when things go right on two different transit systems, which seems far too rare these days.

Lately, Grand Central Station has become an overcrowded tourist nightmare where you have to do breathing exercises to stay calm getting from the station to the subway.

I cannot believe they put an Apple store in there. It should be a crime to choose profits over efficiency.

Queens Village - a little further from the city.

Flushing

Fresh Meadows

Rego Park

Maspeth

Middle village

Kew Gardens

Take a look at the NYC subway map. Follow trains heading East of Manhattan: E,F,7,L etc...