Commuting from 620 or NW area to Downtown (Cedar Park: rent, how much)

[sunshine088]

Does anyone commute to downtown from the NW area? How long does it take you. What about around 6pm, would you hit traffic. How much does gas cost you if you commute.
I am debating if its worth living in the NW area with cheaper rent because living near downtown is too expensive.

[reverse]

I live in Cedar Park and take 183 -> Mopac to Enfield and it takes me about 30 minutes in the morning leaving at about 9:25am. Coming home, going the same route it would take me about 35-45 minutes depending on traffic if I left at 6pm. It's not horrible but if you aren't used to long commutes it can be frustrating.

Since I can work from home alot, I tend to save on gas quite a bit so that isn't a issue for me. If it's raining out, I just won't head in to work since that will easily add anywhere from 10-20 minutes to the time to get where I need to go.

As far as rent goes, how cheap are you looking? I lived off of Duval which wasn't a bad commute to downtown at all (roughly 20 minutes) and the rent wasn't outrageous but it wasn't all that cheap either. Not sure you would save all that much the further north you go.