is it a really bad (or even stupid) idea to commute from mclean to suitland, md? (Arlington: to rent, condo)

[sarahbd]

Hi I am relocating to VA from CA this Summer and looking for a townhouse or condo to rent. My main interest in housing search is a good school district (my child starts middle school this fall). I was hoping to find a house around a Longfellow Middle School district in Mclean.
The problem is that I have to commute from Mclean to Suitland, MD everyday! Many people suggested that I find a different city due to a heavy traffic when I commute. So I searched through Arlington (Williamsburg Middle School district) and Springfield/ Burke (Lake Braddock Secondary School or Robinson School) as well.
But after comparing schools and housing (e.g., price, age..etc), I keep coming back to search for the Mclean area.
Is this a really bad (or even stupid) idea to commute from Mclean to Suitland, MD? When I googled directions, the estimation is about 30 minutes (1 hour in traffic) one-way, which is not that bad. But I have no idea what the traffic will be like.
I've been reading a lot of posts by insightful people including JEB77 and Clairemarie, which I found extremely helpful. I would greatly appreciate any comments that you all can make. Thank you very much!

[JD984]

Originally Posted by sarahbd

Hi I am relocating to VA from CA this Summer and looking for a townhouse or condo to rent. My main interest in housing search is a good school district (my child starts middle school this fall). I was hoping to find a house around a Longfellow Middle School district in Mclean.
The problem is that I have to commute from Mclean to Suitland, MD everyday! Many people suggested that I find a different city due to a heavy traffic when I commute. So I searched through Arlington (Williamsburg Middle School district) and Springfield/ Burke (Lake Braddock Secondary School or Robinson School) as well.
But after comparing schools and housing (e.g., price, age..etc), I keep coming back to search for the Mclean area.
Is this a really bad (or even stupid) idea to commute from Mclean to Suitland, MD? When I googled directions, the estimation is about 30 minutes (1 hour in traffic) one-way, which is not that bad. But I have no idea what the traffic will be like.
I've been reading a lot of posts by insightful people including JEB77 and Clairemarie, which I found extremely helpful. I would greatly appreciate any comments that you all can make. Thank you very much!

OK, we have a deal. You call me insightful and I'll tell you that you're not crazy.

But, seriously, you're not. McLean is a prime location for folks who work in DC, and Suitland is in PG County, Maryland not too far from the border with SE DC. The distance from McLean or parts of Falls Church that feed into Longfellow to Suitland is about 20 miles, which is a distance that plenty of people who live in NoVa travel to their jobs every day.

So, here are the caveats: unless you're traveling early and planning to get to work by, say, 8:30 AM, the traffic will be bumper-to-bumper, it could take longer than an hour each way on a bad day, and there are more than a few "bad days." And, while Longfellow has a great reputation (that is, high test scores and an enviable track record of student acceptances to TJ, the local magnet high school), it's also over-crowded (hello, trailers) and in an old building that is now undergoing a multi-year renovation.

[sarahbd]

Thank you very much, JEB77. Will traffic be the same situation if I drive from N. Arlington? Should I switch to Springfield/Burke area? Thank you!

[claremarie]

My husband commuted for 20 years from northern Virginia to U-Md in College Park, first from N. Arlington and then from McLean. Our Arlington house was just minutes from the Toll Road/495 exit from I-66, and the McLean house was just minutes from the GW Parkway,which is one of the reasons that such a ridiculous commute actually worked. With no accidents or construction traffic, he could be across the bridge within 10 minutes. From that point, it was a reverse commute to College Park, and he generally made it in about 45 minutes. (Less than that on days he could leave before 7)
Evenings were always much worse, especially during the last 5 years or so. It could easily take an hour, or closer to two with accidents/weather/construction delays.
If you have some control over your work schedule, and can travel during off-peak hours, it can be a manageable commute. My husband had colleagues from Rockville and Potomac who had longer commutes because of the time it took them to get to the Beltway.

Having said that, I must point out that middle school is only two years. Longfellow has a great reputation largely because of the GT program housed there, which as a transfer student your son might not even be eligible for his first year. The "regular" students attending Longfellow are getting the same educational program available at every other Fairfax middle school. McLean HS is very good, but I'm not sure it's worth deliberately incurring such a long commute.

I have relatives who live in Burke, and one of them has worked at Census in Suitland for years. He takes the Beltway in the opposite direction (over the Wilson Bridge), and there are all sorts of traffic issues in that commute as well.

McLean is not that different from communities such as Bethesda in Montgomery County. Have you given any thought to shortening your commute by living in Bethesda (as close as you can get to the Beltway)? Bethesda-CC HS sometimes gets a bad rap because its test scores are not as high as those at Whitman, but it's a very solid school with a lovely new campus in downtown Bethesda. And you would spend a lot less time in the car. We started out in northern Virginia long before we had kids, and for various reasons decided not to make the move to Maryland. But it doesn't make a lot of sense to start out from scratch with a difficult commute.
Hope this helps.

[JD984]

I don't really disagree with Claremarie's observations, although I don't think a NoVa-to-Suitland commute would be as bad as a NoVa-to-College Park commute, which I would never have considered. And, while a Bethesda-to-Suitland commute might be easier than a NoVa-to-Suitland commute, Bethesda is on the opposite side of DC than Suitland (Bethesda is outside NW DC, while Suitland is outside SE DC), so it still wouldn't be a piece of cake. If a shorter commute is a major goal, you might consider Silver Spring, Maryland, which has some good schools (although not ones as regularly praised as those in McLean or Bethesda).

[sarahbd]

Thank you all for thoughtful replies! I will search for Bethesda housings as well but wonder how much it will shorten my commute. If it shortens, say, 30min., then it's worth to go for it. But I am not sure if that is the case.
I wonder if Falls Church will provide a better commute option. Do you have any thoughts?
Thank you very much!

[South Jersey Styx]

I commuted once from Sterling, VA to Suitland, MD. It depends on where in Suitland you're going, the time(s) you're departing and returning, and if there is any mass transit available. If so, you can mix it up.

I used to park and ride in Reston and take the metro in and catch a shuttle in downtown DC that my office provided to the building in Suitland. On the days that I drove, I took the GW Pkway east, a shortcut near the Pentagon to the 14th St Bridge, east across 395 and onto Suitland Pkwy. It sounds confusing but it isn't all that bad. The hairy parts would be traffic on the Pkway where folks were going into Georgetown (which you'll bypass by staying in the left lane) and merging onto the 14 St Bridge (where everyone is trying to get into DC). But the rest is easy and the Pkwy is way nicer to drive through than the beltway or other highways.

My suggestion is to stay on the VA side versus Bethesda. Good luck!

[ChristineVA]

My mom commutes from Woodbridge to the Suitland Federal Center. Once she gets out of Woodbridge, the drive is piece of cake. I know Woodbridge isn't McLean and my post isn't suggesting you go to Woodbridge, just that there are people from NoVA who make this commute. I honestly think that Burke/Springfield is a good choice because your worst commute is over the WW Bridge and according to my mother, it's not so bad these days!

I don't know who you would come in from McLean. If you take I495 around the beltway, it can get tricky after 7:30. That would be my only concern.

[calitova]

I commute from Great Falls to Columbia MD every day. The key for me is that I live close to the beltway. As Clairemarie said, the evenings are much worse. It helps a lot that I can get off the highway as soon as I cross the bridge.

We have always tried to minimize our commuting time and when we relocated here, we chose Great Falls because it was convenient to my husband's office in Tyson's Corner. That didn't help us much when his company closed the office last year. We are lucky that we chose a place we happen to love. So my advice would be, pick a place to live that has everything you want and a commute that you can tolerate. You can't always choose what happens with your employer, but you can choose where you live - and that may be a much longer-term decision.

[novaman99]

I commuted from Sterling to SE DC (Anacostia) for several months and there was no traffic and the commute took me about 40 minutes.....if I left @ 5am ;-) . Coming home at 230pm, it would take me about an hour and 20 minutes. If I worked a normal 730-4 or 8-430 type of deal, I would be sitting in traffic for a couple hours each way.

there are more "bad days" than "good days" in the DC metro region, traffic wise. And it will only get worse with BRAC moves and more obnoxious road construction (e.g. Hot Lanes) and metro expansion (e.g. Dulles rail line).