Commuting to Baltimore and New Brunswick from Philly (university, living in)

[anignatov]

Hi, everyone! My wife and I will both start attending PhD programs at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Rutgers University in New Brunswick this fall. Currently we live in San Francisco and we are not familiar with the mid-Atlantic part of the East Coast. A few friends suggested living in Philly and commuting two or three times per week to our respective campuses.We looked at a number of websites with regard to different transportation options in the area and whereas Amtrak undoubtedly offers the most convenient one, it is far from affordable($ 950 for a monthly pass from Philly to Baltimore is outrageous!) ...It seems that it will be easier and cheaper for my wife to get to Rutgers via the River Line or regional transit to NJ. However, the only more promising option to Baltimore seem to be the Chinatown buses or driving and everyone i've spoken to has been discouraging me from the latter!
I would greatly appreciate any feedback and thoughts on making this or a similar arrangement work. We are very flexible and not necessarily set on living in Philly...Perhaps it might make more sense to live closer to one of the campuses and for only one of us to bear the burden of the commute..
Thanks a lot!

[silverspringer]

Philly makes sense to me. If your schedule on campus if flexible and you can arrive after rush hour, I think driving would be OK. South Jersey might be an option, or Wilmington. The worst driving in the New Brunswick-Baltimore stretch is in NJ, in my opinion.

[NYMTman]

Chinatown buses... I've had bad experiences. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don't. I've been on a Chinabus that broke down in the Lincoln Tunnel before. Driving isn't so bad... you may get stuck in traffic, but you'd get stuck in traffic in a Chinabus as well. Either way that's a nasty commute, but if it's only two or three times a week, you might be able to manage.

BTW, Philly itself... I'm not so fond. South Jersey has some nice suburbs - nicer than the PA suburbs actually. Also not particularly fond of Wilmington. So I would suggest South Jersey.

[NYMTman]

Also, there's always two rush-hour bottlenecks between NB and Balt: on the Turnpike between Exits 7 and 8, and in Delaware. So yeah, try to avoid rush hours.

[christina0001]

I'm not much for cities. I personally would relocate to Burlington County, NJ, as near to the I-295 corridor as possible, and drive. I live in Robbinsville, NJ right now (which is north of Burlington, in southern Mercer County, right off of Rt. 130 and near I-295) and New Brunswick is a 35 minute drive, whereas Johns Hopkins is precisely 2 hours at off-peak hours (with traffic it's closer to 3 hours). I think if you were in southern Burlington it could be close to a 1ish hour drive for each of you. Also Rutgers has another campus in Camden, which is right over the Burlington County border. If some of the Rutgers classes could be taken at the Camden campus, that would be a huge time saver. The drive to Johns Hopkins is easy, it is almost pure highway. The only significant traffic is once you get into Baltimore city limits, and if you can arrange your schedule so you don't have to drive during rush hour, it's not a horrible commute.

[anignatov]

Thanks everyone! Your posts will certainly make us reconsider driving as an option, especially in terms of going to Baltimore! We are really set on making this difficult situation work and I really appreciate your feedback!