Relocating from Australia,need help re traffic along Leesburg Pike? (Reston: rental, hotel)

[Melbourne Family]

We are relocating to NoVA in September from Australia & are in the process of finalising schools for our 10 year old & finding a rental property to call home within 10 - 15min commute to school by car & 10 - 20 min commute to the Exxonmobil offices in Gallows Rd, Fairfax (my husband will be working there).

We have found a home that we quite like (on the internet) in the Madrillon Farms area of Vienna & our daughter is possibly going to attend Langley School in Balls Hill Rd, McLean. I'm not sure if the morning trip to school will be a problem with traffic. I received great information on a previous thread that mentioned that traffic through Tysons in the am would be terrible. We would have to travel along Leesburg Pike between Gallows Rd & Lisle Ave in order to avoid Chain Bridge Rd. Would the traffic along here be a nightmare to get to school for an 8am start? (Is this considered Tysons?) When I search on Google Maps the travel time comes up quite favourable but I'm not sure how accurate that is.

The other possible school for our daughter is Westminster School in Annandale (Gallows Rd). Would travel from Madrillon Farms to there be ok?

Also is the Madrillon Farms neighbourhood nice? My husband will be in Fairfax next week for 10 days & is hoping to check the area out but as he has never driven on the right hand side of the road before he may not even get out of his hotel carpark!!!!

Thanks for your help

[VRE332]

Did you guys just decide again to move here? There was a post a few months back and you asked the same questions? You posted the SAME question back in May 2008 here //www.city-data.com/forum/north...rs-please.html

[Melbourne Family]

Sorry VRE332 I thought I was asking for different information in my new question. I'm actually after info regarding a specific portion of Leesburg Pike & whether this area I've mentioned is part of Tysons as I have previously been told to stay clear of Tysons during peak hour traffic. As you can imagine relocating to a new country is quite a difficult & stressful task when you are trying to organise things from the other side of the world so forums like this are my only resource to gather information. It is also my only way to gain local input to sort out the good neighbourhoods from those that are not so good (unfortunatley they all look good on Googlemaps!)
Sorry if I have exceeded my question quota.

[ACWhite]

Melbourne Family, please don't worry about asking questions; you can ask as many as you like. I wish I had an answer but am not familiar with that area. I hope someone else can help you.

[saganista]

No number of questions is too many. Madrillon Farms (SW of the crook in Gallows Road as it heads west to enter Tysons) is on the immediate periphery of Tysons Corner. The neighborhood (along with Freedom Hill next door) has a long history, mostly as a black neighborhood in the days before open housing became a reality here. With the increasing prosperity and population inflows of the 1990's, the area has seen substantial development and now has a significant array of upscale townhomes and SFH's. Residents there would need to plan their travels so as to avoid as much as possible the rush-hour crush of Tysons proper, but no such concern would be needed in heading south on Gallows to Exxon-Mobil, or in following the same route to the Dunn Loring Metro if that were ever to come into play.

The same would be the case if your daughter were enrolled at Westminster. Straight shot south on Gallows, with moderate traffic only. For a run to the Langley School, you could cheat the devil by taking the bridge at Old Gallows Road across Route-7 and into the shopping center parking lots, then wending your way across to exit onto 123-North. Traffic on that stretch of 123-N is usually easy, as the light to the west at Old Courthouse Road acts as a dam on traffic, leaving it backed up for miles into Vienna, but leaving the stretch from Tysons up to the left onto Lewinsville Road fairly smooth-flowing. I would think 15 minutes would do it, at least on most days. By the way, you can't retrace that route to get back home. 123-S to the left into Tysons on International Drive, then straight through across Route-7 and you'll be back on Gallows Road headed home.

[Melbourne Family]

Thanks ACWhite for your kind response and many thanks to Saganista for your great reply, exactly the type of information I was looking for! IYHP would you suggest we look into another area due to the traffic chaos around Tysons during rush hour (what times am & pm are considered peak hours for traffic in Fairfax?) I would hate to be stuck in traffic everytime I need to head to the supermarket or want to take our youngest daughter to the park or playgroup etc. Also would this neighbourhood experience lots of traffic noise?
Thanks so much!

[VRE332]

The traffic is bad around that area. I think you may like Gainesville but it going to take about an hour to get home.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by Melbourne Family

Thanks ACWhite for your kind response and many thanks to Saganista for your great reply, exactly the type of information I was looking for! IYHP would you suggest we look into another area due to the traffic chaos around Tysons during rush hour (what times am & pm are considered peak hours for traffic in Fairfax?) I would hate to be stuck in traffic everytime I need to head to the supermarket or want to take our youngest daughter to the park or playgroup etc. Also would this neighbourhood experience lots of traffic noise?
Thanks so much!

The worst of the chaos is on the major feeder routes and in trying to maneuver around the grid of the Tysons business district itself. Gallows and Old Courthouse Roads are secondary routes that do carry a good volume of traffic in rush hour and can back up on their worse days, but they do not compare to Route-7 coming in from Reston or to Route-123 coming from Vienna. I drove Gallows northbound from Merrifield to west Tysons yesterday (right past Madrillon) around 7:30, and it was about as usual. Plenty of cars, got caught by three or four lights, but otherwise moving right along...just another trip in traffic. Rush hour begins early and ends late, with the peak being about 7:30 to 9:00. For the most part, the roads do have trouble accommodating rush hour traffic, but (aside from the Beltway, and maybe 95 and 66, where you can get slammed at any hour), they are excellent the rest of the day and on weekends. It is actually easy to get around during most of the day...just really bad on many roads during rush hour.

There would definitely be noticeable traffic noise in Madrillon, though that might depend to some degree on how far back into the neighborhood you were. Gallows carries traffic into the wee hours, as does Route-7, and the 24/7 truck-carrying Beltway is less than half a mile across the way. So you'd be more on the edge of the hustle-and-bustle in Madrillon than out in the pastoral, tranquil countryside. At the same time, you'd be ridiculously close to everything you need to get to. There are a few areas nearby where you could have more deer and foxes and peace and quiet with only a little less convenience, but the price per square foot might take a bit of a jump too. Personally, if the place in Madrillon were to come up to practicality and livability desires and standards per your husband's upcoming inspection, I don't think I'd let traffic noise be such a big influence, especially if your daughter goes to Langley. If you chose Westminster for her, then both the job and the school would be to the south, and it might some sense to explore further down that way. There are some lovely places there that would offer traffic noise from I-66 instead of from Tysons and the Beltway... :-)

[Melbourne Family]

Thanks again Saganista for the great information. My husband still plans on taking a look at the place in Madrillon if he gets the chance, but we may just have to wait until the school is finalised (unfortunately this won't be until we all arrive in 5 weeks time as we want to visit each school & of course they want to meet us before the offer a position!) before we make a final decision. It seems that if our daughter attends Westminster or possibly even Flint Hill School (we have also applied there ) we might have an easier task of finding a rental that we like closer to either of those schools as all of the homes that I have looked at in the surrounding area of Langley School appear to be quite old or are over near Tysons which sounds like it may cause too much stress trying to get to school ( I think I need an easy route to follow each morning since I'm not too confidient about driving on the opposite side of the road to what I'm used to yet whilst trying to dodge traffic chaos within a limited timeframe to get to school on time - won't look good for the new kid to be late every day!) We have also seen a rental home in Falls Church (22043) near the golf course (a big + for my husband) that looks nice on the internet. Do you know what the traffic from here to either Langley or Westminster would be like on a normal day? Travel time on Googlemaps seems good to either school but I'm not sure if I can rely on their estimates. Also looks like an easy commute for my husband to work. Thanks again for all your insight.

[saganista]

I assume that's Jefferson District Park, which is a very nice 9-hole executive course. Less than 2500 yards from the back tees, but still a par-35. If you can hit the ball straight, it will not go in the water, and you can walk off with a satisfying score. Anyway, north of there would be in the Shrevewood area, near (but not actually in) Falls Church. South would likely be Fairview Park. Both are very nice areas, and Exxon-Mobil from either one would be ridiculously easy, and Westminster would be only a little bit more than that. Langley might actually be easier (though not shorter) from there than from Madrillon, as you could take Shreve Road across Falls Church (Shreve becomes Haycock as you cross Route-7), then left on Great Falls Street which will take you across 123 onto Lewinsville, and with a quick right onto Balls Hill, you're there. Same route back, with no real expectation of traffic deserving of the name either way at any hour, save possibly for some on Haycock getting past the West Falls Church Metro station. Flint Hill is in Oakton, which would be to the west of Exxon-Mobil. From the Shrevewood area to Flint Hill, you'd likely just take Lee Highway west to to Blake Lane, then go north to the school. Easy. There would be more traffic coming back along that route, but nothing awful. Maybe add 5 minutes for the AM trip home, with the getting there part being in the 15-minutes or so range. From the Shrevewood area actually, the trip to all three schools should be pretty close to equal in terms of time, with Westminster being the shortest by a few minutes or so, and Langley the longest by pretty much the same. There would be some noticeable traffic noise in Shrevewood, as the Beltway is just to the west and I-66 is just to the north, but it won't be anything significant...