2 hours from NYC is misleading for those of us traveling by air.
I live in L.A. To get to the East Coast from here I have two direct choices: a Jetblue redeye from Burbank (easy airport close to home) to JFK then travel on to AC or a regular flight from Los Angeles International ("LAX") on a number of airlines to JFK or Newark, followed by a drive down. When I checked last time there were no direct flights to Philadelphia from LAX. Going to LAX adds nearly 2 hours to my trip on the front end because traffic is so horrendous. I can go Burbank to Phoenix with Southwest. Transferring planes in Phoenix (or at some other hub with another carrier) to get to Philly adds more time to the trip than the drive time differential between Philly and going into JFK or Newark directly. Add the hours on each end to the time required for airport security, flight, baggage and related airport logistics, car rental or ground transport acquisition, etc., and the trip becomes 12-14 hours from the West Coast, door to door, all-in. Each way. And there is no direct train access from NYC to AC as far as I could tell. When the show was in Baltimore I could travel to NYC then take Amtrak from Penn Station down to the the show, which was a piece of cake. I tried to line up a similar thing for AC and found there wasn't one.
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