Your commute ? (Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Marietta: apartments, rental, credit check)

[Tryska]

That is one point in Vinings favor. There is definitely plenty of restaurants and a diversity, without being overly crowded.

I just don't know that it wouldn't be more isolating. I'd tried to figure out what the change was for me (coming from NYC and living in Vinings for 16 years) and how it was that I knew no one that lived around me. And for me - I chalk it up to the car. You don't really see people. You drive by them, you walk past them while being a consumer doing consumer things, but you rarely get an opportunity to talk to them. Except at bars. And like I said - my experience with Vinings bars was they were just full of people wearing khakis and blue oxfords. Not that is necessarily a bad thing. I wouldn't say they were snotty exactly. It's just....there's only so many beer-soaked conversations I can have about libertarian values before I kinda want something different. lol

[Tryska]

Originally Posted by Wayr2go

sedimenjerry, do you (and perhaps your mother) commute in/around Vinings or to and from downtown?

Tryska, I travelled around 10 am and also late in the afternoon around 3:30pm, then 5pm and once late in the evening and so far I didn't see anything that I would consider horrific. Only once did I have to slow down 4 miles away from downtown and it took me 10 minutes to get through that. Overall 40 minutes as opposed to 25 otherwise. I'm OK with that (I think )

Umm...try it on an average Tuesday between 7 and 9 am, from Vinings to Downtown, and again around 5-6pm (pick a rainy evening for that one) and then report back. lol

[Wayr2go]

haha, thanks Tryska- I hope it rains tomorrow as I'm taking a trip to Vinings again. Also, i laughed about your comment referring to blue oxfords/khakis and bear soaked conversations. That is essentially a reflection of the "elite ivy-league-ish" crowd so proud that it would feed the entire world's population should it be an edible thing.

Another issue is about safety (vehicular) - I feel Vinings would be generally more safer and cheaper for insurance compared to midtown/surrounding area.

[Tryska]

Originally Posted by Wayr2go

haha, thanks Tryska- I hope it rains tomorrow as I'm taking a trip to Vinings again. Also, i laughed about your comment referring to blue oxfords/khakis and bear soaked conversations. That is essentially a reflection of the "elite ivy-league-ish" crowd so proud that it would feed the entire world's population should it be an edible thing.

Another issue is about safety (vehicular) - I feel Vinings would be generally more safer and cheaper for insurance compared to midtown/surrounding area.

lol - except they all went Auburn or Alabama or some such thing. The occasional Clemson.

You are right that it might be safer and cheaper for insurance. I suppose it depends on how secure your midtown parking is.

[cislga]

In today's AJC, a column by Mark Arum, The Gridlock Guy, published a bit about a study by NerdWallet, that ranked ATL costliest commutes.

From the column, "For the complete list of cities and full breakdown of the study, go NerdWallet Credit Card Blog and click on "Nerdwallet's Best Gas Cards, Fall 2014."

They used census data, average gas prices and ins. premiums for their analysis.


HTH

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by Wayr2go

sedimenjerry, do you (and perhaps your mother) commute in/around Vinings or to and from downtown?

Tryska, I travelled around 10 am and also late in the afternoon around 3:30pm, then 5pm and once late in the evening and so far I didn't see anything that I would consider horrific. Only once did I have to slow down 4 miles away from downtown and it took me 10 minutes to get through that. Overall 40 minutes as opposed to 25 otherwise. I'm OK with that (I think )

No for us it's the Snellville area to Sandy Springs which is much worse IMO. I'm not sure how rough traffic is off the freeway in midtown but I much rather deal with 75 between midtown and Vinings than anywhere on the top end of 285.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Wayr2go

So guys, I'm currently searching for my 'humble abode' and have narrowed my choices to midtown and vinings - quite a vast expanse but I love the proximity of midtown to my work in downtown and the general calmness of vinings (and its development prospect).

The two properties i looked at are actually equally priced in terms of rent so essentially it comes down to traveling expenses for me.

And while I was considering that, what struck me was the miles i'd be driving on the daily commute

vinings is approx 11 miles to the town and midtown about half of that one way.

So essentially people commuting from vinings are traveling 11 *2 * + another 20 (if you are traveling for social purposes - grocery, food, restaurants etc.) *365 = 15330 miles a year. thats a bare minimum i'd say. I was shocked to say the least to see that 15k a year is a minimum. I jst moved from Boston where everything was within a 10 mile radius for me and that too on public transportation.

So I'm curious to see what people think of traveling this much per year and how are their cars faring with respect to condition and value? 15-20k a year is almost twice as much as you'd expect a regular car to travel in a year.

Thoughts/perspectives welcome.

Thank you

That's your Boston perspective. 15-20k is pretty typical. Under 10k is extraordinarily low. When I was working out of the home and primarily using the other car for travel and weekend restaurants/shopping, I was still putting on 5k a year.

[ATLTJL]

A lot of it depends on how long you plan to keep your car and whether you garage it.

What I have found that there is really not that much difference in value for a 10 year old car whether it has 100,000 or 200,000 miles on it. I find time to be much harder on a car than mileage, if you plan on keeping it for a long time.

If you only plan on keeping a car 5 years, I think the difference is much larger.

I've never had a car live longer than 12 years, regardless of how many miles it had on it.

[Wayr2go]

thanks guys, it surely is different to how I've seen/used car previously where such long distances were rare a travel. But looks like in ATL this is a story of pretty much every household so I'd imagine that higher miles aren't neccessarily going to be a significant cause of concern unless they are extreme - so if 10-15k a year is a norm here then I guess it'd apply to pretty much everyone in ATL unless they happen to live and work next doors. At the moment I'm looking at buying cars and it seems that my argument of higher miles to negotiate pricing isn't all that relevant. I'd have to find other ways I guess.
Talking about miles, I drove roughly about 70 miles about the town today going from east to north to west and then south looking for cars all over !

[Adi from the Brunswicks]

My commute is a 10 minute ride on the trolley.