HOBOKEN, N.J. — It is happy hour at the Hotel Victor Bar and Grill on a Friday and the place is nearly empty. The evening commuters who would normally be emerging from the PATH train station across the street about this time, filling streets with thousands of potential customers, are nowhere in sight.

“We should be booming right now,” David Rousso, the bar’s owner, said.

Hurricane Sandy inflicted an estimated $7 billion in damage on transit systems across the region. Harder to calculate is the toll on the economy leveled by commuter disruptions.

And perhaps no place has felt that impact more acutely than Hoboken. This city of 50,000 on the banks of the Hudson River thrives on its easy access to trains, buses and ferries into Manhattan. According to census surveys, an estimated 56 percent workers here use public transportation every day, surpassing New York City as the most transit-reliant community in the nation.

That convenience has played a crucial role in the city’s evolution from a rough-hewed factory town to an enclave of upscale bars and restaurants and pricey condominiums with unfettered views of the Manhattan skyline.