Richard Walsh spends four hours a day or more commuting from a New York City suburb to his job in Manhattan.  Five days a week, he drives to a Rockland County, N.Y., park-and-ride and boards a bus to the Port Authority terminal in midtown. Then he walks more than a mile to his information technology job downtown, shunning the subway to save money.  His physically grueling commute, which he shares with tens of thousands of others in the region, costs him about $400 a month. It's a tough pill to swallow as family budgets are squeezed by higher payroll taxes and a sluggish economy.  "The bus part is an hour and 20 minutes," said Walsh, 37. "Sometimes I have to stand for that long because there are no seats. The heat doesn't always work and the bus breaks down at least every two to three months." His bus doesn't even have a bathroom, he added.  (Read more: These 5 people have the coolest jobs ever)  Walsh sticks with the rigorous commute, however, even with transit prices going up almost every year. His current trek is actually the least expensive option.  "My wife works 10 minutes from the house, and we have two kids. One of us has to be close to them, so one of us had to make a sacrifice, " he said.  Walsh has tried looking for IT positions closer to home, but jobs locally are scarce and salaries don't compare to those in the big city.  (Read more: Office smackdown: Parents vs. childless workers)  Walsh is clearly not alone.  A study last year from New York University's Wagner School crowned Manhattan as the country's top destination for "extreme commuting"—defined as work trips taking 90 minutes or more each way—and said that one in eight workers in Manhattan is an "extreme commuter."  Recent figures from the U.S. Census back that up. About one-third of workers spend more than an hour each way commuting to the Big Apple; more than half have commutes of 90 minutes or more.  The U.S. Department of Labor finds that, on average, people spend more than $1,100 a year to commute to Manhattan on public transportation, while drivers shell out more than $2,200 for gasoline and motor oil. That figure doesn't include tolls or other expenses.
More people in the New York area are commuting at least an hour and a half each way and paying hundreds of dollars to do it.