[felixtibs]

Thank you in advance for your help.

1) commute time from South Windsor to west hartford is 25 minutes on the map. What will the actual rush hour commute be? I can avoid Hartford by going north and using 291.

2) same as above but with snow

3) all big box stores or is there a downtown

4) parks?

5)anything else an out of towner should know?

[JayCT]

The time from South Windsor to West Hartford depends on where in West Hartford you are going. The most direct route is using I-84 which takes you right through downtown Hartford. This is a very busy road during rush hours so you are going to need a lot more time to get there. Figure another half hour or so.

The other route is to take I-291 to Windsor and then take Cottage Grove Road (Route 218) across Bloomfield to North Main Street in West Hartford. This is fine if yhou are going somewhere in northern West Hartford but if you are going somewhere like West Farms Mall, it is not a good route.

Snow only makes these trips worse but usually CTDOT is pretty good about keeping the roads clear and traffic can be less since some employers like schools will cancel or delay opening which lowers traffic during rush hour.

There is no real downtown area in South Windsor. There are a couple of shopping centers near the intersection of Buckland Street and Route 30. There is a supermarket plus some smaller shops and offices. To the south on Buckland Street is Evergreen Walk which is a nice regional lifestyle shopping center with some great national stores and restaurants. Just south of that in Manchester is the Buckland Hills shopping district with a mall and most major big box stores. The district spreads out off Buckland Street onto Pleasant Valley Road and Buckland Hills Drive. There is a lot in this area but you pretty much need a car to get around. Jay