Language can be telling. What does it say when someone describes Schenectady, New York as being a couple hours away from New York City, rather than nineteen miles from Albany, New York?
This is a piece intended for a national audience, and I’m sure a lot more people know where NYC is than Albany, even if Albany IS the state capital. So their choice of how to describe Schenectady’s location was an good one, even if it did strike my ear as odd at first.