Where to move between Pittsburgh and Koppel? (Beaver Falls, Ellwood City: apartments, rental)

[RIH0586]

I work and live in a small town called Koppel and my boyfriend works and lives in Pittsburgh. We'd like to move in together somewhere bordering Pittsburgh to the north/northwest making it easy to get to both of our jobs. What are some of the nicer areas to consider? Prefer areas with the lowest crime, affordable living, and a yard big enough for a large breed dog. Most of our friend base lies in Pittsburgh so we'd like to keep it no more than a ten minute drive. Thank you, I really appreciate your opinions!

[greg42]

Unless I'm missing something, Koppel is a small town very near the PA Turnpike interchange with Rt 18 (near Ellwood City, Beaver Falls, etc.)

Point being that within 10 minute drive of Pittsburgh there is nothing that would be convenient to your job in Koppel, if convenient is at least partly defined as a short drive. It's just not possible. If you define it roughly as an easy drive, like not too much back road, etc, then being close to 279 or 79 would help you as you can just go up to Cranberry and get on the Turnpike, but it's going to take a while. Where in Pittsburgh does your boyfriend work? If downtown, that will help, as opposed to, say, Oakland or points east where it'll take longer to get to from the north and west suburbs.

So, what comes to mind is somewhere like West View, which is close to town but less expensive than some of the places farther away, and convenient to I-279 aka Parkway North. Other options may be the towns along the Ohio River/Rt 65. I'd be surprised if you got to Koppel in under 40 minutes from such places, even as a reverse commute. (Note, in the evenings, the "reverse commute" doesn't work as well; for some reason the traffic is almost as bad southbound/inbound in some spots.) But, it would help to have a better definition of "affordable living" as there's such a wide variance in how people define that. I gather you're looking at buying? What sort of price range? This will help in spotting which areas could work for you. If your affordable range is higher than expected, there may be more places to look. Crime is not typically an issue in the areas in which you would look, and yards should be adequate, although this will vary with price as much as location.

[RIH0586]

Thanks for the response greg42. I should of been more specific, haha, I'm going to try to answer all your questions. My boyfriend works on centre ave. around the shadyside area. I believe he hops off 279, onto liberty ave, and then to friendship when he needs to get to work coming from my neck of the woods. We're looking to rent a house for 500 dollars or under per month. We'd like to look into buying, but with our incomes we can't really afford much. Thanks again for the help!

[ditchdigger]

Greg seems to have a real good handle on the various scenarios.

Just for fun, I put Koppel, and 15206 (East Liberty, but only a few blocks from Shadyside), into Mapquest and asked for directions. Initially the route given was the Turnpike to 28 south, across the Highland Park Bridge, and into Shadyside, but moving the destination only a mile or two west (actually into Shadyside, 15232), changed the route to Turnpike, 79, 279, 28 North, to the 31st St Bridge, and then to Shadyside.

That puts a lot of the north hills at about an equitable driving distance from both places...

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

Greg seems to have a real good handle on the various scenarios.

Just for fun, I put Koppel, and 15206 (East Liberty, but only a few blocks from Shadyside), into Mapquest and asked for directions. Initially the route given was the Turnpike to 28 south, across the Highland Park Bridge, and into Shadyside, but moving the destination only a mile or two west (actually into Shadyside, 15232), changed the route to Turnpike, 79, 279, 28 North, to the 31st St Bridge, and then to Shadyside.

That puts a lot of the north hills at about an equitable driving distance from both places...

I did it a little differently on google maps and got similar results. It's about 40 miles, give or take a few depending on the route taken, from Koppel to Pittsburgh. So simply find a place 20 miles from each job. That's a drive, but not *that* bad. You may have to give up being ten minutes from your friends' houses. If they're good friends, they won't mind driving 15-20 min to see you, nor you to them.

[greg42]

Anyone know somewhere with $500 rental houses though? I hate to throw water on the idea but nothing springs to mind for me. Apartments, perhaps, but I don't know about having a large dog....