Downers Grove Main St rush hour (Naperville, Joliet: buying a house, buying, magnet schools)

[Mks law]

We are considering buying a house on the south side of downers grove, about five miles south of the train station. It took us ten minutes to drive to the train without traffic, but we are wondering how traffic on Main Street gets during rush hour and whether it would be better to go for a home on a smaller lot but closer to either the lisle or naperville stations. Also, my husband needs highway access to travel to Joliet, wheaton and st charles on a regular basis so we are wondering how rush hour traffic would be with those commutes. Thanks!

[ofcjim40]

You looking to live around 75th St? It can get backed up pretty decent especially when trains are holding up the traffic. If you like the house, I say pick it. Just try multiple back road ways to avoid Main as much as possible. There's no shortage of back routes. And of course the best advice I can give you is be out there during that time before you buy and try it for yourself. Then go eat at Zest in Lemon Tree Grocer right by the train station. Great food and get some cupcakes to go. But no matter what, you're going to hit congestion with all the above places you listed. Even if commute is 10 minutes longer in the DG house, if that's your #1 pick, I'd say stick with it and deal with the commute.

[chet everett]

I tend to agree with at least part of Ofcrjim's suggestion -- the positives of Downers Grove are worth a little hassle. Frankly I have never found there to be an enormous amount of rush hour traffic related delays. The stoplights are set up to have protected lefts and mostly syncronized access for through traffic. If you have a "routine" and know where the various school buses and commuter buses cluster you can avoid 90% of slowdowns. Even rail traffic is not too bad as the through traffic mostly does now utilize Belmont with its underpass. There are good options for getting on 355 at 75th, Maple, Ogden so that limits N-S traffic too..

The other question is MUCH harder to answer. Personally if you can a find a cute home close enough to downtown to Naperville to actually WALK to the train that very likely would be significantly smaller than a similar priced home in south Downers BUT you would have a rather different range of WALKABLE amenties -- really the proper comparision is to homes nearer the core of DG and even then Naperville simply has a much broader range of shops, resturants, nightspots...

Lisle does not have as nice a downtown as DG and is far less desirable than pretty much any other town in DuPage along the BNSF, but your money does go farther and it is a viable option especially when dig into the things that contribute to why it is less desirable. The schools are not in the top tier but they do have mostly acceptable performance but since there are other areas with much better schools as well as quite desirable private schools nearby there is sort of "draw off" of the most involved parents / most talented students. This is a little like the way magnet schools siphon of the best students in CPS ...