Commuting from Peabody to Boston University (Malden, Salem: live in, moving, train station)

[mbell6285]

Hello everyone,

My wife is beginning a PhD program at Boston University in the fall. We currently live in Peabody and are trying to sift through her commuting options.

We live obscenely close to Route 1, and it's an easy 30 minute-or-less trip into Boston in good traffic. But of course, traffic is not always good, especially during rush hour. We don't have a lot of experience making the trip during those times.

What we are looking for are numerical estimates for time going into Boston either along Route 1 or I93. Obviously, times will be different from day to day, but we are hoping to calculate an "average," that we can then weigh against public transit.

We don't live close to the commuter rail or the subway, so if we can make the auto commute work, we'd like to. Otherwise, we may have to move. For comparison, the MBTA trip planner estimates the time from Reading Station to BU at 72 minutes, 62 minutes from Wakefield. This obviously does not include the time to get to the station in the first place.

What say you? Worth it to drive? What kinds of commuting times are you used to in the morning? In the evening?

Thanks so much for your help,
MB

[blackandgold1]

I don't know about others on the boards, but because BU is southwest of downtown Boston, opposite of downtown from you in Peabody, if you really care about a quicker and relatively low stress commute and that's a top priority for you, I'd think about moving closer to Boston. I would think that the auto commute would be pretty gnarley most of the time. On the T, you're wife is going to have get herself to the commuter rail station, take it to North Station, then hop on a Green Line train over to BU every day for the next x years.

[wivenhoe]

If you're close to Route 1, you might want to take a look at parking in Wakefield, Reading, Melrose, or around the Oak Grove Orange T station in Malden. You're probably closer to these train stations than Salem. You might want to experiment with routes and times and try the route from North Station as the above poster mentioned. Bear in mind, the Green Line to BU can get crowded and delayed at times during the academic year.