Good neighborhood, good schools not too far from Bellevue? (Seattle: live in, buses)

[AnnieMill]

Hello!

We are a family of 5 seriously considering a move to the Emerald City.I've spent hours researching the schools and I had chosen Woodinville...My husband would work in Bellevue. Is the traffic bad from W. to B? I checked the transit system that estimated the bus-trip to something like2 hours...I guess the driving would not be that long?
I checked Issaquah, Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond...it is so hard to choose a neighborhood when you can only check Greatschools.net and the community website!
We are Canadians, we lived in San Francisco, Austin and now live in San Diego.
Any input on traffic and schools would be very helpful!
Thanks a lot!
Annie

[scirocco22]

Bus trip, 2 hours??? Maybe 1 hour in each direction? You got that from Metro?

Traffic will DEFINITELY be bad from Woodinville to Bellevue in the morning and Bellevue to Woodinville in the evening. I-405 is a mess! But nowhere near 2 hours one-way on the bus. There's an HOV lane (which sometimes isn't any faster than the regular lanes) that the buses use so the bus will probably be faster for him than if he tried driving it himself.

I'll try to look up the bus schedule for you when I get the chance to see exactly what they schedule it for.

--'rocco

[scirocco22]

Okay, here it is directly from the Metro website:

Woodinville to Bellevue is route 237 on the schedule posted in the link. It's an express bus with no stops inbetween.

In the morning there appears to be 3 trips.

2 of them are scheduled for 26 minutes and the 3rd one is for 29 minutes.

In the afternoon all three trips are scheduled for 28 minutes.

They are all scheduled for "estimated time" so that means that it could be less if traffic is good and a LOT MORE if traffic is bad. Count on traffic being bad because usually it is!


Here's the link; copy and paste to your browser:

http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/...s/s237_0_.html


--'rocco

[AnnieMill]

Thanks a lot! That sounds better! I don't know how I came up with the other result!
We are also considering Issaquah? Do you know if the traffic on the 90 is better than the 405?
Thanks again! I really appreciete it!
Annie

[scirocco22]

Originally Posted by AnnieMill

Thanks a lot! That sounds better! I don't know how I came up with the other result!
We are also considering Issaquah? Do you know if the traffic on the 90 is better than the 405?
Thanks again! I really appreciete it!
Annie

Hi again, Annie. Well, not much. Again, I-90 is just as "messy" because not only do you have Bellevue commuter traffic but those going into Seattle as well. There's a bus that expresses into Bellevue from Issaquah too ...I think it's a Sound Transit route. Again, I'll look it up when I get the chance and we'll see if that bus is any faster than the one from Woodinville.

Oh, and btw, the Seattle region is one of the few places where the locals refer to the two interstate freeways with "THE" extracted. So it's just "I-90" and "I-405" rather than "the 405" or "the 90." Or a lot of us will just say "405" for I-405." Most major metropolitan areas seem to use the "The" in front of their numbered freeways for some reason. Seattle folk can always tell a newscaster who has just arrived in town when they say "the 405 is really crowded this morning" or "THE I90 is jammed up at the Ranier exit" etc.

--'rocco

[scirocco22]

Heh, i feel like a customer service rep for the transit agency!

Okay, there are 6 trips from Issaquah to Bellevue in the morning and the same number in the afternoon. Running time is scheduled for just over 20 minutes. They make one stop at Eastgate. So for all intents and purposes, pretty comparable to the Woodinville times.

It's Sound Transit route 555 and 556. Here's the schedule page:

http://www.soundtransit.org/x3376.xml

--'rocco

[AnnieMill]

Ha ha! That's funny! Thanks a lot!
Watch how local I get: I guess I -90 or I-405 are both to avoid! (see...no "the").
If ever you need to know something about San Diego, let me know!
Have a good one!
Annie

[scirocco22]

You're moving from San Diego to Seattle!!??

OMG! *I feel a heart attack coming on ...this could be the big one!*


--'rocco




edit: oh wait, you already said that in your original post; i just missed it ...nevermind!


p.s. yeah, I just may have some questions for ya. I'll let you know.

[scirocco22]

Oh, but back to your comment. Let's face it, if hubby is going to commute into Bellevue from anywhere, he'll have traffic to contend with just as he would coming from anywhere into Seattle.

They don't call the region one of the most congested in the nation for nuthin'!

--'rocco

[AnnieMill]

O.k...why the heart attack? Is it THAT bad up there?