Where to live in Montgomery County, commute to College Park?

[Samoi137]

Have you talked with a realtor? You say you've heard Silver Spring isn't nice. Note that Silver Spring is not a town, but large, unincorporated part of Montgomery County. I lived in two places in SS: in a row townhouse about a mile west of "downtown" SS (inside the Beltway), and, later, in a single family dwelling in the Aspen Hill area of SS, a few miles north of the Beltway. The two areas were quite different, though I liked both, for different reasons. "Nice" is a very subjective term. If you want to rely on public transportation, that narrows don your choices. When I lived in SS, I worked in DC, and for a while went to night classes at UMD. I tried using Metro, and a shuttle bus from SS, but later relied on driving.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by Samoi137

and, later, in a single family dwelling in the Aspen Hill area of SS, a few miles north of the Beltway.

Hmmmmmm. Wouldn't Aspen Hill be more associated with Wheaton than Silver Spring? My friend who lives in Aspen Hill swears he lives in Rockville, but clearly the Rockville city limits stop well short of his address. Just wanted to get clarification.

I know that when you enter zipcodes, they can be misleading. I live in Adelphi, but my zipcode says Hyattsville. But guess what? You'll get Hyattsville if you use a New Carrollton zipcode as well sometimes.

[Phyxius]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Hmmmmmm. Wouldn't Aspen Hill be more associated with Wheaton than Silver Spring? My friend who lives in Aspen Hill swears he lives in Rockville, but clearly the Rockville city limits stop well short of his address. Just wanted to get clarification.

I know that when you enter zipcodes, they can be misleading. I live in Adelphi, but my zipcode says Hyattsville. But guess what? You'll get Hyattsville if you use a New Carrollton zipcode as well sometimes.

That's because most Maryland towns are unincorporated. Aspen Hill, Wheaton, Silver Spring and Adelphi are all unincorporated towns whereas Hyattsville is an actual city with their own government.

[rsh56]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Hmmmmmm. Wouldn't Aspen Hill be more associated with Wheaton than Silver Spring? My friend who lives in Aspen Hill swears he lives in Rockville, but clearly the Rockville city limits stop well short of his address. Just wanted to get clarification.

I know that when you enter zipcodes, they can be misleading. I live in Adelphi, but my zipcode says Hyattsville. But guess what? You'll get Hyattsville if you use a New Carrollton zipcode as well sometimes.

My friend lives in "North Kensington" near the intersection of Veirs Mill and CT ave, but guess what? His zipcode is in SS. I think Aspen Hill is somewhat associated with Wheaton in a way. But yes, there are a lot of incorporated areas like his.

[AeroGuyDC]

Originally Posted by ATMT99

My family and I are moving to the DC area this summer. Having never been to the area we don't even know where to start. My husband will be working in College Park, and right now we're mostly looking at Montgomery County - Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Wheaton, Glenmont, etc. I've heard most of Silver Spring is not very nice, but that you can find areas that are nice. We aren't set on any particular location, but are open to opinions on different areas. We will rent for a few years and then buy, and hope to rent in an area where we would eventually buy. For rent, our budget is approx $1800-2200 per month. My main questions are:

- What would the commute be like to College Park from each of these areas? Would it be best to take the Metro or drive?

- We'd like an area with young families. We are both in our early 30s and just out of grad school. We have 3 children, ages 6, 4, and 1. I'd like an area with young families and children nearby, lots of parks, etc. That being said, I'd also like to live relatively close to the city because we enjoy the activities that the city has to offer (not so much the night life, but family events, etc).

- Based on our above mentioned budget, what type of housing would we be looking at? Townhome? House? Apartment? # Bedrooms, etc?

Advice on any or all of the above questions would be greatly appreciated!

I'll comment on the "Silver Spring" portion of your post.

Silver Spring was a bit of a mystery to us when we first moved to the DC area. When researching, SS web references always seemed to default to the economic boost downtown SS has been seeing in recent years, in addition to the neighborhood development immediately surrounding the downtown area.

That's where SS is misleading in my view. When you perform a real estate search for SS, you will find that it actually encompasses a large portion of Montgomery County. For example, if you look closely at the map you will see areas called Rossmoor....Colesville...Fairland....and others that seem to be their own townships....but in reality those areas are still Silver Spring. What this means is that there are outlying areas of Silver Spring that are far less diverse...better neighborhoods and schools....decent roads and parks.....but are still wrapped up in Silver Spring zip codes.

Basically, don't discount SS on the whole until you've looked at all the areas that encompass SS. It's a good idea to use Zillow.com or Trulia.com to see what i'm talking about. And if you have a chance to drive through there, that would be even better. You'll see what i'm talking about.

[nanoscale]

Originally Posted by ATMT99

My main questions are:

- What would the commute be like to College Park from each of these areas? Would it be best to take the Metro or drive?

Hi there -- if you have a UM faculty/staff/student ID, take a look at UM Shuttle, wifi included. The shuttle has routes in MoCo to/from: Silver Spring, Burtonsville and Shady Grove. The 1hr to/from Shady Grove is a bargain; takes much longer by Metrorail and would be far more expensive. Metrorail ain't cheap.

The SS and Burtonsville routes have a couple of extra stops for access.

DOTS :: Schedules

The university promotes non-car commuting, so things should only get better. The downside: only available when the U is open, but that's most of the time, realistically speaking, and obviously you have to adhere to their schedule.

If someone in your household is prospective faculty, i believe the U is currently conducting a study to get recommendations on what needs to be done in the area to get more faculty to plant roots in PG/surrounding area vs MoCo. I would agree w/ others here who have suggested that you consider PGC if there aren't obvious dealbreakers involved (schools is most common).

If UM Shuttle is not an option for you, drive vs Metrorail varies depending on where you will be located. Metrorail is not cheap, and you have to factor in obtaining parking if you don't live close to a station. I hate to say this because I favor public transit commuting, but I'm not here to convince you based on personal likes/dislikes. What I would suggest is that when you are looking at prospective housing, figure out how you would get to the nearest station (park or dropoff or walk etc) + monthly fare and add to your budget.

Biking part (with assist from metrobus/metrorail) or all the way is an option as well. Almost all Shuttle UM buses have bike racks as well.

Driving to College Parks sucks, largely because US Rt 1 (the main drag) really, really sucks. Make that a nightmare when there's a game. Same goes for University Bvd in, lots of stop and go at most times associated with normal business commuting times, severe congestion game days. I gave up on driving to CP a while ago so my attitude is a bit dated, but just about any route in is stressful, including Metzerott Rd and Randolph Rd/Cherry Hill, although the latter probably represents best of a bad bunch.

[phoenixmike11]

There is commuter bus that goes from gaithersburg (frederick and monocacy marc as well) to college park (AM) and returns to gaithersburg (PM) so that might be a option if u live in gaithersburg or germatown
http://www.mta.maryland.gov/sites/de...4Apr2012_0.pdf
their revised schedule as starting 04/02

[phoenixmike11]

just to let people know there are 5 ICC commuter bus routes- here is a link for more info
MTA ICC Bus Routes

[ATMT99]

Thank you everyone for all the responses! I haven't posted much on city-data and so just barely realized there were 2 pages of responses. I appreciate all the input!

Having talked to different people, and based on the responses here, I think we're sold on the Silver Spring area (including unincorporated surrounding communities) because of the short commute to College Park, and the schools seem to be good (although this seems to really depend on the neighborhood.

Having narrowed it down to Silver Spring, I'm now curious about certain neighborhoods. I'm drawn to the following neighborhoods: Colesville, Cloverly, Woodmoor, Woodside. They seem to be family friendly, the schools are good, the commute to College Park seems reasonable. We're still looking in the $1800-$2200/month price range, and unfortunately there don't seem to be many options for us in these areas. There don't even seem to be many rentals at all in these areas (even if our budget were higher).

A lot keeps popping up in the following neighborhoods: Wheaton, Fairland, Calverton, Aspen Hill. Can anyone provide further insight into these areas? Particularly schools, safety, commute to College Park, whether it is family friendly, etc. We have 3 young children and so a family atmosphere is very important to us. Honest feedback is appreciated.

I appreciate all the input and all of the feedback is really helping me narrow down the right place for our family. Thank you!