Moving to Houston with kids, commute concerns (Pearland, Spring: for rent, homes)

[Bamamom]

Hi all!

We are very excited to be moving to Houston with our 4 children (ages 2, 4, 8, and 12) this July so I can start a fellowship at MD Anderson and my husband can begin working at a church in Jersey Village.

Because we have school age children, we recognize the need to live outside of Houston and, because of my husband's work, have been looking in the Cy-Fair school district for a place to rent. I'm curious about commute times from the Cypress or Jersey Village areas to MD Anderson. I know it's probably a bear, but I'm having trouble finding anyone who can give me a realistic estimate.

Also, any information about neighborhoods to seek out (or avoid) would be great. We can't afford much more than $1100/month for rent and we'd really like our children to be in the best possible schools given our constraints.

Looking forward to getting some good, objective information from ya'll!
Thanks!!

[RESteve]

Hi there!

What kind of hours are you expecting to work? In my experience, drive times in Houston are highly dependent on what time of the day your own the road.

[AK123]

You're right... those northwest parts of Houston to MDA would be an awful commute... at least an hour when things are good... 290 is awful, one of the slowest, most congested roads around and it doesn't even go all the way into town.

That's hard. If his job is in Jersey Village and yours is at MDA... you might look around in the Memorial area. It is Houston ISD but some good schools because the area is wealthy. Your husband could take the Beltway to work and it wouldn't be too bad, and your commute would be a little better.

[Premont]

If you lived in Jersey Village you could get right on Beltway 8 and take it to 59. 59 would take you to Buffalo Speedway and then over to Holcombe. You would need to purchase an EZ tag to use the tollway regularly. I used to make the commute to the med center for a number of years and it's like a miniature city at rush hour. There's a lot of bumper to bumper traffic at those hours. It can be difficult making that drive day after day.

As suggested you might consider splitting the commute. The Memorial area is actually in the Spring Branch district, which is nice if it's south of I-10. The town and country area has some nice places or you could look at the Memorial area west of town and country. That would put you in the district of Stratford High School, which is a nice school.

[Mr. Football]

The commute from Cypress to Downtown during off-hours is not that bad (25-30 minutes)...it's unbearable during rush hour (1 hr 15 minutes)

[Bamamom]

Thanks for the info. The commute times do sound a bit bad, although I did about the same when I lived in DC.

I don't know what my hours will be, but I'm sure they will involve some rush hour traffic. Does anyone know if commute times are any better with park and ride options?

[Guerilla]

You may want to look at northeast Houston for a shorter commute time. Since you will be going to MD Anderson for work, try Pearland. There are more communities there than just Shadow Creek Ranch, AND there are many medical professionals living there (since it is the closest (nice) suburb to the Texas Medical Center). I'll give you some neighborhoods:

http://www.shadowcreekranch.net/

http://www.southforkliving.com/ (broken link)

http://www.newmarkhomes.com/tousa/ShowCommunity.do?communityId=577 (broken link)

The nicest community to me in Pearland is Silvercreek:
http://www.silvercreekhouston.com/

Hope this helps.