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Hi All,
I work in Parsippany, and my wife works in NYC.
I would like to purchase a home in Belle Mead (Montgomery township). Could you please tell me the commute options to NYC?
It's a long and unpleasant commute no matter how you do it. It's over an hour of driving time even at 3AM.
You could drive to Jersey Ave and catch the NEC (need a parking permit, no clue on availability), or you could drive to Bridgewater and catch the RVL, and the RVL does not go direct to NY Penn, there's a transfer. If you're going to Lower Manhattan, you'd have to transfer to PATH on both.
Regardless of if you drive, take the train, take a bus (if there is one), or some combination of modes, I'd estimate your door to door commute time at 2 hours each way, which to me is infeasible.
It's a long and unpleasant commute no matter how you do it. It's over an hour of driving time even at 3AM.
You could drive to Jersey Ave and catch the NEC (need a parking permit, no clue on availability), or you could drive to Bridgewater and catch the RVL, and the RVL does not go direct to NY Penn, there's a transfer. If you're going to Lower Manhattan, you'd have to transfer to PATH on both.
Regardless of if you drive, take the train, take a bus (if there is one), or some combination of modes, I'd estimate your door to door commute time at 2 hours each way, which to me is infeasible.
Thank you for your response. I heard there is a bypass road that will be ready by end of 2014 or 2015.
Then also will this be a long and unpleasant to NYC? what about Parsippany, if I start at 7 AM?
Thank you for your response. I heard there is a bypass road that will be ready by end of 2014 or 2015.
Then also will this be a long and unpleasant to NYC? what about Parsippany, if I start at 7 AM?
The Route 206 bypass will not be finished by the end of 2014, and may not even be completed by 2015.
At this point, there is one section of the bypass--more or less in the middle of that route--that has been completed, but the northern and southern parts of the bypass are VERY far from seeing the light of day.
And, even when the new road is complete, its northern terminus will be at Old Somerville Road, which leaves only the old--one lane in each direction--portion of 206 for a distance of a little over 2 miles. Southbound, the bypass will end at the Pike Run development, and will then dump traffic back onto the "old" 206, creating another bottleneck at that end. Thus, even when the bypass is complete, there will still be a bottleneck standing in your path on your northward commute, and (possibly, depending on where you live) on your southbound commute.
As to Parsippany, you need to get yourself to I-287 as quickly as possible. Most likely, the closest entrance to 287 is at interchange 12, which you would access by taking 206 to Amwell Road, to Millstone River Road, to the Manville Causeway (currently closed), to Weston Canal Road, to interchange 12. Or, you could use interchange 13 or 14, but those necessitate staying on Millstone River Road through extremely congested Manville, and then wending your way to those interchanges.
Or, you could stay on 206 until it merges with Route 202 at the gridlocked and very accident-prone traffic circle that spans Somerville and Raritan. Then, a couple of miles northward on 202/206 would bring you to interchange 17.
The Bridgewater NJ Transit station is very close to interchange 13, so you can assume that your wife would need to stay on Millstone River Road through Manville in order to get there. Parking for NJ Transit's NE Corridor Line in New Brunswick is...unavailable, as I understand it at both Jersey Avenue (New Brunswick) and at the main New Brunswick station...so the Raritan Valley Line (via the Bridgewater station) is probably the better option.
If it sounds like there are no easy options, unfortunately that is correct. Belle Mead is a beautiful, upscale area with a very high quality of life, but commuting to NYC or northern NJ from that area is...arduous.
Last edited by Retriever; 05-09-2014 at 07:16 AM..
Please listen to the above posters and do not buy in Belle Mead if your wife has to commute to NYC. I have to drive there (Skillman) occasionally to visit family, and 206 is hell. And that's not even rush hour.
A house in Belle Mead is in a very nice area of the state. Almost rural, Almost suburban
BUT, commute "every day" Belle Mead to NYC, OMG !
Very few major road options around Belle Mead, getting to major roads
and what there is there, is very crowded, especially during rush hour times.
Figure at least 2 hr/ each way
The "Bypass" is still an apple is someone's eye, been talked about for 10 years. First they have to buy up a bunch of homes, then the bulldozers move, Once it starts (if ever) will take many years to finish
And in reality, it will not bypass anything
I'd have to add that "hole" in the highway system is directly right where th NJ portion of I-95 was going to be built. I mean I-95 was going to blow right through where the curve over the railroad tracks on 206 is in Belle Mead, bbbbut no dice. The locals back in the 1970's didn't want any roads built to carry people from "out of town" through or over their neighborhoods. So now you have what you have.
I have used back roads back when I commuted from NW Morris County to the Princeton Plainsboro corp HQ areas back in the 80's. Not a bad ride back then sticking to the back roads.
The "Bypass" is still an apple is someone's eye, been talked about for 10 years. First they have to buy up a bunch of homes, then the bulldozers move, Once it starts (if ever) will take many years to finish
And in reality, it will not bypass anything
Apparently you haven't been to the area for some time, and also it appears that you did not read what I posted earlier.
The bypass was conceived as a way to do two things:
>Speed the flow of traffic on Route 206 by building a parallel, limited-access route with no traffic lights
>Provide Hillsborough with a "main street" of sorts on the current Route 206, with a much reduced traffic flow as a result of the diversion of through-traffic to the bypass.
The section of the bypass from Amwell Road to Hillsborough Road has been open for several months, and it took a couple of years to build, so construction DID start...a few years ago. The stones on the bridges of that route bear the year 2010 (or 2011??), as that is when they were constructed.
All of that being said, it will probably take at least 3 more years for the bypass to be completed, but when it is complete, it will bypass the commercial stretch of 206 between Pike Run and Old Somerville Road, with no traffic lights.
Last edited by Retriever; 05-09-2014 at 10:57 AM..
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