[pd914]

Does anyone have any insight? Better route (Merritt/95)? Average time, etc...

Thanks in advance

[pjnugget]

Originally Posted by pd914

Does anyone have any insight? Better route (Merritt/95)? Average time, etc...

Thanks in advance

Park at train station and take the train...probably best way unless you are dead set in commuting by car...neither highway is probably any better.

[Wilton2ParkAve]

Talk to Stylo. He claims its pretty pain free and should only take about a half hour.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by Wilton2ParkAve

Talk to Stylo. He claims its pretty pain free and should only take about a half hour.

No need to be condescending. I commuted to Westport (near the Norwalk border), which is a different situation altogether than, say, commuting to west Norwalk. And yes, it was pretty pain free.

OP - where is your office? That can make a huge difference.

[pd914]

Originally Posted by pjnugget

Park at train station and take the train...probably best way unless you are dead set in commuting by car...neither highway is probably any better.

Eh, I'd rather not be on the train's schedule.

Originally Posted by Stylo

No need to be condescending. I commuted to Westport (near the Norwalk border), which is a different situation altogether than, say, commuting to west Norwalk. And yes, it was pretty pain free.

OP - where is your office? That can make a huge difference.

Route 7 near Wilton. Also, continued from above.. I'd have to make a transfer to the Danbury train I believe. Sounds like more of a hassle.

[Stylo]

Train is not an option for that location.

That's not the worst commute. In my experience, the Merritt is usually better - although I preferred 95 after 6PM.

If you leave around 730AM, you should minimize traffic. Or after 9AM. If not, there's some backroads you can take that are very helpful on days with bad traffic. You'll have to use live traffic before you leave to check traffic, but sometimes you can just tell when traffic is bad enough to necessitate the backroads.

See map: Milford, CT to Merritt 7, Norwalk, CT - Google Maps

The nice thing about that route is that you can pretty much hop on and off anywhere from the Trumbull mall all the way to Wilton. In my experience, rarely do you need to hop on at Exit 48. Traffic is usually the worst between the Fairfield Rest Stop and exit 42.

Many mornings were fine, maybe a minor slowdown between 44 and 42. Mornings with traffic, I'd usually get off at 45 or 44 and go backroads to Westport. Horrific mornings, I'd take backroads from 48 or 47 all the way to Westport and that was typically a 45-50 minute commute.

For you, you'll probably wind up getting off the highway around exit 45 and back on around 42 to take the rest of the Merritt to Norwalk. It's kind of funky once you get to Exit 42 and need to take backroads to Norwalk. There's no true parallel route.

Good luck.

[kidyankee764]

The commute is not the worst, but that's not saying much in southwestern CT. It will take you about 40-45 minutes on an average morning and probably about 50 minutes in the afternoon. And that's if it's sunny. If it rains, get ready for it to take over an hour. If it snows, budget two hours of your time.

If it were me, I'd look into Fairfield.

[pd914]

Originally Posted by Stylo

Train is not an option for that location.

That's not the worst commute. In my experience, the Merritt is usually better - although I preferred 95 after 6PM.

If you leave around 730AM, you should minimize traffic. Or after 9AM. If not, there's some backroads you can take that are very helpful on days with bad traffic. You'll have to use live traffic before you leave to check traffic, but sometimes you can just tell when traffic is bad enough to necessitate the backroads.

See map: Milford, CT to Merritt 7, Norwalk, CT - Google Maps

The nice thing about that route is that you can pretty much hop on and off anywhere from the Trumbull mall all the way to Wilton. In my experience, rarely do you need to hop on at Exit 48. Traffic is usually the worst between the Fairfield Rest Stop and exit 42.

Many mornings were fine, maybe a minor slowdown between 44 and 42. Mornings with traffic, I'd usually get off at 45 or 44 and go backroads to Westport. Horrific mornings, I'd take backroads from 48 or 47 all the way to Westport and that was typically a 45-50 minute commute.

For you, you'll probably wind up getting off the highway around exit 45 and back on around 42 to take the rest of the Merritt to Norwalk. It's kind of funky once you get to Exit 42 and need to take backroads to Norwalk. There's no true parallel route.

Good luck.

This is fantastic info. I honestly thought there would be no hope for a back road route, but I'd probably prefer the back roads almost everyday. Unless there is zero traffic at all.

[Stylo]

Traffic patterns are truly weird in FFC. There are spans of months where traffic is very light and sometimes nonexistent, and then all of a sudden it will be horrible for 6 weeks. Usually when school ends and starts are the worst times for traffic.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

If it rains, get ready for it to take over an hour. If it snows, budget two hours of your time.

If you know the backroads there is no reason for it to ever take 2 hours. My record commute was an hour, and that was on a day the Merritt was practically shut down and backroads were slow.