Commuting north and south from Plainfield (Trenton, Union: estimate, parking, rated)

[Badfish740]

Can anyone give me a real world account of the commute from Plainfield to either the Trenton area or the Hopatcong area? As I've stated before those are the areas in which my fiancee and I currently work and we're trying to get a feel for what the daily traffic battle is like.

I am currently working in Princeton Junction, so Google maps routes me from West 7th Street to Washington Avenue to Route 1 for about 17 miles. This yields a total distance/time of 28.7 miles/51 minutes. My instinct tells me that most folks would be traveling north on Route 1 in the morning and that the bad traffic wouldn't begin until one passed Princeton and got closer to Trenton where the crush of state workers into the capital would be more concentrated. So, would it be fair to say that it would take a solid hour with normal morning/afternoon traffic? I need to be in by 9, so it wouldn't bother me to leave as early as 7:30 AM if it meant beating some of the traffic.

Now, my fiancee's commute to Hopatcong is a bit less intuitive for me since I have less of a grasp of those roads. Again, Google maps routes you on 78 East for 8 miles (I could see that being a parking lot), 24 West for 10 miles, 287 North for 4 miles, and 80 West for 15 miles. The last stretch on 80 I would imagine would be cake since most folks should be heading east in the morning right? The estimate given is 43.6 miles/57 minutes. So, a solid hour and 10 minutes with normal traffic? Of course I should also add that she needs to be at work by 6:45 AM regardless, so that may negate some of the normal morning rush.

So, any other Union County commuters have stories to share?

[Nancy in Nokomis]

Plainfied to Trenton during rush hour will take about 2 hours