Commuting to Deerfield and TriRail/95 Express bus to Miami (Fort Lauderdale: to rent, condo)

[lulutastic]

Hello, everyone! I will be moving to South Florida in August for work -- really looking forward to escaping my Canadian winters! After skulking around this forum for a bit, thought I would reach out with a couple commuter questions, as this will help me figure out where to look for a condo to rent.

My work will take me from Deerfield Beach to Miami's Brickell Ave. I will be spending roughly 7 months out of each year in Deefield, with the remainder anywhere in the South Florida area (the uncertainty sucks, I know). I thought I would look in the Ft. Lauderdale area for a place to live as it represents fun, urban living kind of in the middle of my possible commuting range.

Google Maps is saying that living in Ft. Lauderdale would get me to Deerfield in about 30 mins. For those months when I have to get into Miami, I see from previous threads that the I-95 is ridiculous, so I was thinking of taking the TriRail or the I-95 Express bus (I would rather sit on a train or bus for an hour rather than driving through rush hour traffic myself).

I am hoping that going North to Deerfield on the I-95 in the morning would be opposite rush hour traffic... is this true? What's the rush hour commute like Northbound in the morning and Southbound in the evening on the I-95, i.e. is Google's 30 mins reasonable?

Finally, does anyone have experience with taking the TriRail in from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami Brickell during rush hour? How about the 95 Express bus?

Thanks so much in advance!

[Nolefan34]

It is doable if you live and work right off of a train station. Otherwise, you would have to find transportation to and from each train station. Deerfield and Fort Lauderdale are large places. Your work could be 2 miles from a Tri Rail station. In Miami, there is a train station in Brickell. You could take the Tri Rail south and switch onto the Miami metro rail system which takes you into downtown and Brickell.

Also, the traffic is bad on I-95 no matter which direction you're going from Fort Lauderdale because people commute to West Palm Beach. It is probably less severe heading north from Ft. Lauderdale to Deerfield than vice versa but it is no cakewalk. I can assure you of that.