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A work related opportunity has presented itself in Atlanta GA, Well the office is located is outer perimeter between Dunwoody and Sandy Springs just off the 400 at Perimeter point. I am currently located in Phoenix Arizona. I would be coming with my wife and two kids 7 & 4 years old.
I currently commute 35 miles which takes me about 45 minutes in and 1 hour out and would be looking to do a little less miles. We really have no interest in living downtown. Our main concern is a decent school system and a nice sized property, We would be looking to Rent initially
Alpharetta seems to have decent schools but rent/property prices seem quite high but not ruling it out. My questions relates to Lawrenceville. How are the schools? Is a big area I know but in general is it safe? How would the commute be to the area where my office is located? Any red flags I should consider. Open to suggestions for other areas too. Looking to keep rent between $1000-$1250
A work related opportunity has presented itself in Atlanta GA, Well the office is located is outer perimeter between Dunwoody and Sandy Springs just off the 400 at Perimeter point. I am currently located in Phoenix Arizona. I would be coming with my wife and two kids 7 & 4 years old.
I currently commute 35 miles which takes me about 45 minutes in and 1 hour out and would be looking to do a little less miles. We really have no interest in living downtown. Our main concern is a decent school system and a nice sized property, We would be looking to Rent initially
Alpharetta seems to have decent schools but rent/property prices seem quite high but not ruling it out. My questions relates to Lawrenceville. How are the schools? Is a big area I know but in general is it safe? How would the commute be to the area where my office is located? Any red flags I should consider. Open to suggestions for other areas too. Looking to keep rent between $1000-$1250
Thanks for your feedback
If you want a rush hour commute that's shorter than what you currently have in Phoenix, the Lawrenceville area may not necessarily be the first place that you should look.
...That's because the rush hour commutes between where you would be working in the Perimeter Pointe area and the Lawrenceville area can be extremely-challenging on the major commuter routes that you would be using like I-85 and I-285.
(Because, trust me...if you thought that Phoenix rush hours are bad, then 'you ain't seen nothin' yet'...just wait until you've experienced your first rush hour rainfall in Atlanta, or your first Atlanta rush hour with something as simple as just wet pavement, or a rush hour car fire, or a rush hour bus fire, or a jack-knifed 18-wheeler during rush hour, or a multi-car pileup during rush hour...FUN, FUN, FUN!)
Anyways, as far as how the schools in Lawrenceville are...
...The attendance zones/feeder zones for Mountain View, Collins Hill and Archer high schools are the best while the schools in the attendance/feeder zones for Berkmar and Central Gwinnett high schools sometimes tend to struggle because of very-large and fast-rising populations of lower-income and transient students.
Though some of the schools in the attendance zone/feeder zone for Collins Hill High School do have a history of overcrowding at times.
Since you will working just off of GA 400, you should probably start your search in areas closer to where you will be working, like in North Fulton County and East Cobb County.
You could also maybe even look in the feeder zone for Dunwoody High School in North DeKalb County, which the Dunwoody High School attendance/feeder zone is generally an area of good schools that happens to be in a DeKalb County school system that has had some increasingly major issues with its leadership over the past several years.
Also, finding a nice-sized property in an area within your price range of $1000-1250/monthly close to where you will be working at Perimeter Point may likely be a challenge.
...Though you can likely improve your chances of finding something in your price range of $1000-1250 monthly if you are willing to consider detached single-family homes on smaller properties and attached single-family homes (East Coast-style rowhouses and townhomes) which likely are much more prevalent in the Atlanta metro region than they are in the Phoenix area.
The area of suburban North Metro Atlanta north of the I-285 Perimeter (Cobb, North Fulton and Gwinnett counties) is full of 2-bed, 2-bath and 3-bed, 2-bath detached and attached single-family homes on smaller properties in areas of good schools.
Otherwise, finding a detached single-family home in your price range of $1000-1250/monthly on a larger property in an area of decent-to-good schools will most-likely mean a longer rush hour commute from farther-flung parts of the North Metro Atlanta suburbs in counties like Cobb (North Cobb), Paulding, Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall, Gwinnett (North and East Gwinnett), Barrow or Walton.
Thank you for the feedback - I have some specific questions for the below.
That's because the rush hour commutes between where you would be working in the Perimeter Pointe area and the Lawrenceville area can be extremely-challenging on the major commuter routes that you would be using like I-85 and I-285. -[b] [color="Red"]Is their alternative street routes? In Phoenix their is always a street alternative from the freeway. I don't mind spending an hour or so in the car as i would be the only one working and wife would not have to put up with it like we do now, Does these freeway route have a carpool or HOV lane for more than 2 driver? We have that in Phoenix which helps alot. Even a Vanpool option?
Otherwise, finding a detached single-family home in your price range of $1000-1250/monthly on a larger property in an area of decent-to-good schools will most-likely mean a longer rush hour commute from farther-flung parts of the North Metro Atlanta suburbs in counties like Cobb (North Cobb), Paulding, Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall, Gwinnett (North and East Gwinnett), Barrow or Walton.[/quote][b] Thanks for the alternatives. Good schools is a must for us. I am willing to pain through the commuting within reason in order to have a nicer home with space and good schools.
Thanks again for your feedback. All very useful information
I can help a little with commute information.
I grew up in a Lawrenceville zip code (30044) and went to Brookwood High which is a very good school and highly rated. I'm away in college right now but my mom works off Northridge Road off 400 which is a couple miles north of where you'll be working. I also work there some when I'm back home so I know what the route is like traffic wise. Perhaps the most important thing is, are your work hours flexible? My mom will often leave at 545 am for work and get there about 615. It's 29 miles by way of 85 to 285 to 400. She leaves work around 315-330 pm but because traffic often starts to build by that time, she takes a back way. However, her office is farther north than where you will work and there isn't a back way that comes to mind as an alternative in your situation. Also the back way for us is almost always exactly an hour from door to door. And that's for 25 miles. I don't particularly like that way though.
Let me just assume you'd be starting at Sugarloaf Parkway (Exit 108) headed south on 85 for your morning commute. Traffic usually isn't an issue til south of 316 around Pleasant Hill (104). From here south during the normal peak rush hour is very slow with frequent stop and go. That's for all 5-6 free lanes (there is a HOT lane which I'll mention later). South of Jimmy Carter (99) things get better in the far left lanes but 285 is just a couple miles ahead so things remain slow in the right lanes. The two right lanes are exit only for 285 N/W and always end up with delays. Once you get on 285 it remains sluggish. Patience is key. There are times you'll be able to get up to 40 or 50 at the peak of rush hour but then you'll likely slow down after a couple of miles. I'm not as familiar with where off the freeway you'll be working but my exit for 400 is right next to Peachtree Dunwoody and Ashford Dunwoody and I have to wade through traffic for those exits. So even if you exit off 400 you'll deal with that traffic. But traffic on 400N at that time of day is 70+ mph. I can't speak for surface streets there.
Going home 285 E to 85N is painful. The ramp always backs up and at the worst times 285 backs up to 400. But to me 85N is much more manageable in the afternoon than in the morning I think. Takes a few miles to get going but after that it's not too bad until lanes starting getting reduced like at 111 for Lawrenceville Suwannee and 115 for Buford Hwy/Ga20. This of course depends on when you can leave. 8-9 seems to be the worst hour for AM. 5-6 for PM. I've seen 285 start backing up at 85 in the afternoon almost as early as 3 for a normal day. I've personally been in stop and go there a little before 3:30. It's one of the first areas to start backing up and almost always the last to clear up. The Wednesday before Christmas I left the office at 745 PM and when I got to 85 on 285 I ended up in a little bit of stop and go at the ramp. It was 810 PM. Over 4 hours after it started backing up. But still, usually after 715 or so 85 is a breeze once you get on from the ramp. For the morning, I've come to a stop on 85S at exit 102 (Beaver Ruin, our exit for 85) as early as 635 am. No rain or accidents. Just volume. I rarely commuted that early though so no idea what it may typically be like at that time. I've also been in stop and go on 85 at 285 in the morning as late as a little after 10. Compared to the worst times though, it's a breeze which is why if you can pick your times to work that'd be great.
285 has no HOV lanes for whatever reason. 85 from about mile 109 to just south of 285 is now a HOT lane. It's a toll. Sort of. You have to have a peach pass to drive in the lane. It doesn't matter if you aren't charged for it, you must have one. You only get charged if you don't have the minimum amount of people in the car (2 or 3, can't remember). If it's just you, you pay whatever rate is on the info boards. There are certain exits (nothing fancy, just dashed lines instead of solid) and you pay between those exits. My dad uses it in the afternoon a lot. He can skip a few miles of traffic and pay a few bucks. He says it's worth it on the really bad days. I highly recommend going onto 511ga.org. It has cameras, traffic speeds and shows what the message boards are displaying like travel time, speed, etc. You can get a great feel for what traffic is like and what times it gets bad. That was a lot of info, if you have any questions let me know and I'll try to help!
That's because the rush hour commutes between where you would be working in the Perimeter Pointe area and the Lawrenceville area can be extremely-challenging on the major commuter routes that you would be using like I-85 and I-285.
Quote:
Originally Posted by THFC
Is their alternative street routes? In Phoenix their is always a street alternative from the freeway.
...That's the thing...the Atlanta metro region is notorious for not having enough surface alternate street routes and infamously being entirely too-overdependent on its built-out and politically-constrained freeway system and an inadequate network of often winding and hilly two-lane roads that were never widened to accommodate the heavy development and resulting heavy traffic that has been dumped on them.
For example, between the Lawrenceville area and where you would be working in Perimeter Pointe, I-85 has one alternate route to its west in US 23/GA 13 Buford Highway, but there are no real alternate routes to the east of I-85 (US 29/GA 8 Lawrenceville Highway, which might be an alternate route in other major metro areas, has entirely too much rush hour commuter traffic of its own to serve as an effective alternative route to I-85).
The I-285 Top End Perimeter in particular is notorious for having virtually no cross-regional alternate routes within roughly 7-10 miles in either direction...the almost complete lack of cross-regional alternatives is something that makes the rush hour and peak-hour traffic congestion on I-285 so intense and so severe.
...Just imagine if car-crazy Los Angeles had the winding and disjointed surface road network of a Boston or Pittsburgh and that's about what you get with car-crazed but road construction-averse and transit-averse metro Atlanta.
Quote:
Originally Posted by THFC
I don't mind spending an hour or so in the car as i would be the only one working and wife would not have to put up with it like we do now, Does these freeway route have a carpool or HOV lane for more than 2 driver? We have that in Phoenix which helps alot. Even a Vanpool option?
Interstate 85 Northeast through Gwinnett County (between I-285 and the Lawrenceville/Suwanee area) has a TOLLED HOV-3 lane in each direction (or HOT lane where there must be 3 or more occupants in the vehicle to ride in the lane without paying, otherwise 1 and 2-occupant vehicles must pay to ride in the I-85 HOT/HOV-3 lanes).
Both the I-285 Perimeter and GA 400 have no HOV/carpool lanes (...HOV/carpool lanes which the State of Georgia is in a long-term process of converting to tolled/managed lanes where all vehicles will have to pay to ride in the lanes regardless of the number of occupants in the vehicle).
Also, outside of the I-85 Northeast corridor through DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties, HOV/carpool lanes only currently exist along stretches of Interstate highway INSIDE of the I-285 Perimeter, though the State of Georgia is reportedly in the process of bringing tolled/managed lanes to heavily-congested Interstates 75 and 575 Northwest through Cobb and Cherokee counties, and heavily-congested I-75 South through Henry County before 2020 (...the State of Georgia is supposedly is in the process of bringing tolled/managed lanes to those stretches of Interstate in 2018).
The Atlanta metro region does have carpooling and vanpooling options, though admittedly, carpooling and vanpooling is not as prevalent as it probably should be in an Atlanta metro region with such pronounced traffic congestion issues as single-occupant vehicle commuting remains the most-overwhelmingly popular method of commuting between home and work.
...That's because alternative forms of commuting (like carpooling, vanpooling and bus commuting) have just relatively very-recently caught on with the public in the long transit-averse and alternative commuting-averse suburban areas outside of the I-285 Perimeter (largely because of an extreme Southeastern cultural aversion to alternative forms of commuting outside of the single-occupant vehicle)...
...Though use of alternative modes of commuting have slowly but steadily continued to grow as metro Atlanta's traffic problems continued to worsen as Atlanta's regional population doubled from 2.9 million in 1990 to about 6.3 million people today(...but telecommuting, while still relatively very-small in its amount of public use, is the most-prevalent form of alternative commuting in metro Atlanta)...
...An overwhelming amount of population growth on a road network that was only 'designed' to handle the traffic for a metro region of about 2.5 million people.
Here are some links to search pages to help you find vanpooling and carpooling options if that interests you: https://www.google.com/#q=atlanta+vanpool (Atlanta metro vanpool search)
Otherwise, finding a detached single-family home in your price range of $1000-1250/monthly on a larger property in an area of decent-to-good schools will most-likely mean a longer rush hour commute from farther-flung parts of the North Metro Atlanta suburbs in counties like Cobb (North Cobb), Paulding, Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall, Gwinnett (North and East Gwinnett), Barrow or Walton.
Quote:
Originally Posted by THFC
Thanks for the alternatives. Good schools is a must for us. I am willing to pain through the commuting within reason in order to have a nicer home with space and good schools.
It's really good that you are willing to endure long rush hour commutes to have a nicer home with space in an area of good schools.
But understand that, because of metro Atlanta's lack of alternate surface street routes, and because of metro Atlanta's relative lack of alternative modes of commuting, and because of metro Atlanta's overdependence on single-occupant commuting on an overcapacity freeway system, Atlanta's rush hour commutes can be much more intense and experience delays that are likely much more severe than a metro area like Phoenix, which likely has many more alternate street routes and more alternative forms of commuting than traditionally highly transit-averse Atlanta.
The increasing fragility of metro Atlanta's notoriously-overused freeway network during peak hours is one of the major reasons that newcomers to the Atlanta region are often advised to try and find housing relatively close to where they will working.
Thank you so much for the input. Eye opening for sure. This sounds like an absolute nightmare lol.
Work hours will be the standard 7-5 in the beginning anyway. Coming into the office early wouldn't be so much of an issue ie: leaving at 545 am or so but leaving is the issue as i will be right in the mix of thing. YUK
I may have to start looking at alternatives especially as there isn't a conventional street network system which we have here in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Thank you so much for the input. Eye opening for sure. This sounds like an absolute nightmare lol.
Work hours will be the standard 7-5 in the beginning anyway. Coming into the office early wouldn't be so much of an issue ie: leaving at 545 am or so but leaving is the issue as i will be right in the mix of thing. YUK
I may have to start looking at alternatives especially as there isn't a conventional street network system which we have here in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Like was recommended before, some of your better alternatives might be to search for a place to live closer to where you will be working...
...A search for a place to live in areas like North Fulton and East Cobb counties which, like some of the areas in Lawrenceville and Gwinnett County that you are looking at, also both have some of the best schools in the entire Southeastern U.S. in areas that are much more 'family-friendly' and child-friendly than urban areas in like, say, Southern California and South Florida.
And speaking of Lawrenceville and Gwinnett County, sedimenjerry made an excellent point about the quality of the education, not just for Brookwood High School itself, but also for all of the elementary and middle schools in the attendance zone/feeder zone for Brookwood High School.
Brookwood High School, which has a Snellville 30078 address but also serves portions of the Lawrenceville 30044 zip code, is one of the most highly-rated and highly-regarded public high schools not just in the entire state of Georgia, but also in the entire Southeastern U.S.
Brookwood has a reputation of being an EXCELLENT public high school that serves as the anchor of a cluster of excellent elementary and middle schools.
If you were to insist on a rush hour commute between the Lawrenceville area and your workplace at Perimeter Pointe, the Brookwood High School cluster would be an excellent choice of elementary, middle and high schools for your family.
Though, if you decide to attempt to minimize your rush hour commutes by looking in areas closer to where you will be working in Sandy Springs, excellent schools can also be found in areas that are likely a little closer to where you will be working in Sandy Springs...
Excellent schools in areas like:
....North Fulton County (often known most-simply as "North Fulton") in attendance zones/feeder zones for Roswell, Alpharetta, Milton, Chattahoochee, Johns Creek and Northview high schools...
...East Cobb County (known simply as "East Cobb") in the attendance zones/feeder zones for Walton, Wheeler, Pope, Lassiter, Sprayberry and Kell high schools...
...The Peachtree Corners area in the attendance zones for Pinckneyville Middle School and Norcross High School.
Yes you can find some very good schools in the North Fulton area that would place you off 400. Getting to work at 7 am traffic won't be that bad yet and in the afternoon 400NB isn't as bad as 75 or 85 and you wouldn't have to deal with 285 at all.
Again. Thank you all for the advice and information. It is very much appreciated. I guess the main issue with my situation is my insistence on a good school network some decent square footage and to achieve all of this on the budget $75-$80k so from a rental standpoint i shouldn't exceed $1250 or if purchasing i don't really want to go beyond the $200k comfort Zone. This limitation excludes me from alot of the closer area's, If renting - A apartment or townhome just isn't an option.
I take it that regardless of direction ie: coming from the 75 to the 285 or the 92 to the 400, if i looked at places like Kennesaw, Woodstock or north marietta i am going to be faced with the same commuting nightmare? The further out you go it's just gunna get worse? Same issues taking 400 the whole way to somewhere like cummings near the lake?
If you go out to Cumming your morning commute will still be early enough to not worry about delays. The only difference for the afternoon is that as you go from Fulton County to Forsyth County, 400 quickly goes from 4 lanes to just 2. The far right lane is exit only and the far left lane ends about the same time so that area will get backed up. I'm not sure the severity of the backup or the time frame but it's better than dealing with 285 I'm sure. Unfortunately I can't really help with the financial side.
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