Relocating, question on commute times (Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park: transplants, to rent, condo)

[cardinal45]

Hi,
My wife and I will be relocating from Central Illinois to the Twin Cities area within a couple months for my career. I have seen some threads asking about commute times from suburbs to suburbs, and from suburbs to downtown, etc...but I have not found a thread figuring out how long it'd take to commute from Downtown Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park/Maple Grove area.

I would imagine the traffic in rush hour to be pretty heavy from suburbs to Downtown around 8 am, and people returning from downtown to the suburbs around 5 pm. My question is, is the traffic very heavy from downtown to Brooklyn Park in the mornings? And would it be heavy from BP to downtown in the afternoons?

I had picked the Plymouth area out for us to rent for a while, but I read on here that it's a "somewhat boring" area for people like us. We are in our mid 20's and still like to go out, meet new friends (which is described as near impossible on here), go to sporting events, etc etc. I feel that downtown might make that a bit easier for us to do the things we want to do.

So after all my rambling, the question is, roughly how long of a commute could I expect from downtown to BP in the morning rush, and how long would the commute be returning to downtown from BP during the afternoon rush.

Thanks!

[DirtMagurt]

20-25 minutes or so with traffic, 15-20 minutes without. Your assumption is correct that you'd be commuting against traffic. That would not be a bad commute at all and I agree that you'd be better off living downtown (warehouse district). At your age, it's a no-brainer.

[StilltheSame]

20-30 minutes - door to door - little to regular traffic. A great deal of people live in Maple Grove - its a great area.

[Laggard]

I drive from downtown Mpls to Brooklyn Center every morning. Takes me roughly twenty minutes door to door. I leave at 7:30 and traffic is never heavy going north. I never drop below 60 once on 94. From Brooklyn Center/Park to downtown in the morning you will deal with heavy backed up traffic.

[cardinal45]

Thanks everybody. My company is going to pick up a large part of the living expenses, and we have no kids...so I think we are going to lean towards downtown to rent for at least this year. If anyone else has tips or advice feel free to chime in... Thanks again everyone!

[DirtMagurt]

Good luck on the move and congrats. Downtown Minneapolis is a fun place to live at your age, and living downtown makes it easier to deal with winter. I have lots of friends living downtown even in their late 30s/early 40s and while it isn't for me (I like a yard ), it's hard to resist moving down there sometimes. You can just stumble out your front door and walk/cab to everything, the river is right there for runs, walks and bike rides. The commuter bike trail hooks up right behind Target Field and runs for miles around all the city lakes. So it's not like you won't have access to green space living down there, which is great. The skyway system downtown will make winter a lot more bearable...you can get through most of downtown without ever having to brave the elements.

There are tons of people your age downtown and my observation is that there is a much higher percentage of transplants downtown versus anywhere else in town, both of which should make it easier for you to meet people.

In this market you can rent a nice 2/2 condo in a good location for about $1500/mo.