Commuting choices
We’ve been in the new house for almost a month now. We still have a bunch of boxes to unpack, only one room that’s been painted, and a list of things to do that seems to gets longer rather than shorter with time, but it’s starting to feel like home. I like everything about the house except my commute.
I’m still trying to sort out the options. The fastest way to get to work is probably to drive. But it’s bad for the environment, it stresses me out, and parking downtown is expensive. If I could find a carpool, that would be a clear-cut winner, but so far, I haven’t been able to find anyone who is interested via the neighborhood list-serve.
I tried taking the metro to the bus one evening, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a viable option. The main problem is that the bus I need only comes every half an hour, so I’d either have to give up another 10+ minutes to the lead time I need to be sure that I don’t
miss it, or risk having to sit around the Pentagon bus terminal for another half an hour. And it’s a long ride.
Today’s experiment was walking home from the metro station. It’s a long walk — about 4 miles — but the exercise is good for me and most of the walk is quite pleasant. But if I’m going to do that, I need to figure out a way to get across routes 50 and 7 that doesn’t require walking through the middle of Seven Corners, which is about as pedestrian unfriendly an area as humanly possible. If I figure out a route that makes sense, biking to the metro might also be a reasonable possibility.
What I’ve mostly been doing so far is driving to a metro station and leaving my car there. Since D is finishing the school year at his old school, I’ve been generally driving him to school and parking in our old neighborhood — but that only works as long as I still have the Alexandria parking sticker on my car. Once I’m not driving D to school, I’d be willing to park at the metro station near us, except that it generally fills up by 8 am. And my understanding is that there’s a waiting list for the privilege of paying for a guaranteed slot. One of my friends says that I can park in her neighborhood without a sticker, so I may try that.
The Post had an article this weekend about people who were responding to the high gas prices by telecommuting, one or more days a week. This makes a lot of sense — it’s one of the few ways that people can really cut down on their commute in the short run, since most people can’t move or change jobs on short notice. I’m definitely hoping to telecommute at least once a week — my organization is pretty open to it. (One of my coworkers actually lives in Colorado.)
I think I’m in paradox of choice mode here. When I lived near the metro, I took it to work without thinking about it, and didn’t really pay attention to the semi-regular delays and overcrowding. And if I lived out in the boonies, I suspect that I’d just drive and not worry about it. But because I have choices, I’m aware of the downsides of all the possibilities, and keep looking for the perfect one.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
The drive/metro option seems like a clear-cut favorite to me, so long as you get parking sorted out.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Do they have bike lockers at the station? If so, you could bike/ take the train.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
I have a one-word solution:
Motorcycle!!!
I commuted into DC from Seven Corners for years via motorcycle. It was fantastic – $3.00/week for gas, $3/day for parking in DC, and I got to drive on 66 during HOV times. I’d arrive at work every day with helmet head and a huge smile on my face.
I didn’t ride during the worst of the winter – I’m not that hard-core. So on those days I either drove to the Metro or sometimes (I confess) drove all the way in to DC. On rainy days I’d walk to the Metro.
Seriously. You’ll be the coolest mom in the neighborhood. And the Motorcycle Safety Foundation offers classes at NoVA Community College all through the summer. The weekend I learned to ride is one of the top-5 best weekends of my life! 🙂
May 31st, 2007 at 7:22 am
I don’t have any option but driving as I’m also the parent responsible for drop-offs. Have you checked out the bike maps that Arlington provides? I have lots of friends that bike to Ballston from your area:
http://www.commuterpage.com/ART/villages/cpike_tran.htm#bike
May 31st, 2007 at 8:41 am
Hi,
I’m one of the people quoted in the Washington Post article.
For anyone who is interested, there’s a lot of info on telework/telecommuting on our site, http://www.telcoa.org. Also, if anyone has questions they can write to info@telcoa.org.
May 31st, 2007 at 9:08 am
I have a similar commuting dilemma. I am not convenient walking distance from the Metro (it’s about 2.5 hilly miles), but I hate driving into the city and dealing with the hassle and expense of parking. Parking at the nearest Metro station is a hard-to-come-by commodity. I can take the county bus, but it’s slow and infrequent. My decision is often made by weather conditions. Yucky weather = drive. Nice weather = bus.
I honestly think that WMATA doesn’t want more people to ride the Metro to work. It would require them to put in a lot of capital spending to build peak capacity, which would be hard to recoup given that off-peak ridership is relatively low. I rarely choose to ride the Metro at off-peak times, when both the trains and the buses are much more infrequent (particularly for trips of short duration–it’s definitely more convenient to drive).
May 31st, 2007 at 9:27 am
I grew up about a mile from 7 corners! My parents still live there. If you are talking about the EFC metro stop, my mother claims it often fills up by 7 am! crazy.
I used to take the bus from Sleepy Hollow Road up to Rosslyn, and then Metro into DC from there. Of course, this is before I had kids or other obligations, so it was just me and whatever novel I was reading at the time.
They really need a huge pedestrian bridge over 7 Corners or Rt. 50.
Good luck. Here in Wisconsin, there are less choices. Almost everyone drives or bikes to work. The public transportation is not very good. (basically buses with odd schedules.) I miss the metro!
May 31st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Wow, 4 miles seems like a long way to walk on a daily basis. I’m sure the exercise would be great but that would be a greater time suck than getting to the Petnagon 15 minutes early to ensure you catch the bus.
I the drive/park at Metro sounds like a good option. I did that for about a year, and the parking was horrendous. I learned to get there early. Good luck.
June 1st, 2007 at 7:13 am
When I lived in Cambridgeport near the BU Bridge, I used to take a bicycle to the T at Central Square, and locked it to a street sign while I took the Red Line in to Government Center for work. This worked very well, even in slush. Good bicycles got vandalized/ stolen. $10 yard sale bicycles drew no untoward attention what-so-ever. Your commute is longer, and hillier, though.
From a car, it looks like the best way to get across 50 would be on the Route 7 bridge, on the west side – not great, but do-able. And then down by Syms and over through neighborhoods to the Metro. I’ve never bicycled out in that neighborhood, though.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I cannot wait until my son goes to kindergarten, so I can start taking public transit to work again. It is such a pain to drive every day, but there’s just no way I can take public transit and reliably pick him up from daycare by 6 p.m., where we live.
I’ve gone back to telecommuting one day a week, and it is great–I still get to have adult conversations during the work day, but at least once a week, I’m working from home, and those are generally my most productive days.