Rockville or Silver Spring to Reston -- looking for real commute times (Herndon: schools)

[NOLAtoNOVA]

My husband has a job in Reston, and we will be moving there this summer. We are looking at living in Rockville or Silver Spring because of schools -- Virginia doesn't offer the full French immersion programs that our daughters are in now, but Md. does.

Anyway.... I posted once before on this topic, and everyone says that the commute would be horrendous, a nightmare, etc. But since horrendous is relative, can anyone provide details on how many minutes = horrendous?

How long would this commute truly take -- 45 mintues, an hour, two hours?? And is it that much farther to go to downtown Silver Spring than to Rockville?

Thanks!
Pam

[ShannonMilligan]

I used to commute to Rickville from Ashburn. (Ashburn is about 20 minuted further than Reston) It would take me anywhere from 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. It was AWFUL.

[finini01]

It depends on the time of day he would be driving. Its roughly 30 miles taking the beltway and 7, or the beltway and the toll road.

Bare minimum time: 1 hour. Realistic time:70-90 minutes. These are rush-hour times.

[TullyApplebottom]

I commute from Herndon (just west of Reston) to Rockville for work. I drop my husband off/pick him up at work in Reston. I work from 7:00 to 3:30 and the Reston to Rockville leg will take me about 45 minutes.

Your husband will be doing the reverse drive that I will be doing, though, and possibly later into the rush hour so it will be worse. The opposite traffic in the morning is busy on I-270 south and generally ok once you get to the beltway. Going home, the traffic usually pretty backed up both sides, though the beltway/I-270 north usually seems to be worse than the route I'm taking in the afternoons.

If I would make an estimate based on *my* travel time and what I see coming the other way, Rockville to Reston would be 1-1.5 hours (depending on how far north and how far from I-270) and Silver Spring to Reston would be, maybe 1.25 to 1.75 hours. Add more time for the evenings.

These estimates would be for the height of rush hour. The beltway to and from Silver Spring always seems to be super-busy and have a lot of accidents.

I'm certainly not trying to influence your decision, but if the immersion French thing is the only reason for you & your husband to choose MD over VA, pleasepleaseplease give it some more thought because the traffic around here does truly suck. LOL I have a good commute for this area, considering the distance that I drive, and I spend the equivalent a full 40-hour workweek in my car every month.

You can always have immersion Spanish in NoVA! (Sorry.)

Good luck!

[NOLAtoNOVA]

Thanks everyone for the input! the commute is defintely longer than I would have expected. Fairfax County does have French immersion, but the program in Maryland is better because it's full immersion (the Fairfax program only has about a half day in French) But I think that that will have to be good enough ! Thanks