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I am planning on relocating to the Raleigh/Durham area this fall. I've read a couple notes here on this forum concerning commute times and traffic conditions, but I'm still slightly confused as to what to make of it all. I currently reside in Northern VA (suburb of Washington, DC), and the traffic here is non stop, day in and day out. Even on weekends the traffic is horrible. Just to get thirty miles from where I live in Gainesville, VA down to DC can take well over 1 hour (and not too rarely over 1.5 hours). Even to get to my local grocery store which is no more than three miles or so away it's a pain in the you know what to get there (and it doesnt seem to matter much what time of day you're going)... So I'm used to probably some of the worst traffic in the country (besides Los Angeles and NY). So, from the current residents down there- give me the honest truth about traffic. I know work commutes vary, but am I right or wrong in saying that no matter whether you live in Cary, Apex, Faquier Varina (sp?), Wake Forest or any of these suburbs... it probably wouldn't take much more than an hour to get anywhere... anytime of day... any day of the week???? Ok, I know this may be a little exaggeration, but for the most part that's my impression from my two or three visits to the area. Also, correct me if I'm wrong in saying that "rush hour" is really no more than one or two hours on each side of the day? The reason I ask this is that my wife and I were down looking at houses with a realtor on a Friday - all day, and I never saw much of any traffic. Even at 4,5, and 6pm when we hopping on and off the highway, did I ever notice completely stopped traffic like I so often see here. I'd also love for someone to answer more directly... let's say I live in Faquier Varina or up in Wake Forest and I want to get to downtown, how long would it take... in the morning, afternoons, evenings, weekends etc?? My wife and I enjoy the cultural aspects of the downtown area- music, arts, theater etc... so we want to know where the best places to live are going to be and yet still have no more than say a half hour or 45 min at most to get downtown.
Whew....were you exhausted after writing all of that???? Here is the real deal
My sister lives in DC proper (although she has lived in alexandria, and arlington) and no, traffic is nothing to compare to that area, period. Yes, traffic can be a pain down here and yes it can take an hour to get to work, but it is only during certain times of day, etc
The kicker is this, the longer you live here, the more you get used to "light" traffic, and thus, when you are stuck in slow moving traffic for an hour it is irritating.
So, the commute from fuquay to the research triangle park can be an hour. from there you are traveling with people from holly springs, apex, cary, and other towns to get to the park. There are lots of people who live in fuquay and work in the park. My hubby works in the park and we live in wake forest. we moved here from cary because of the commute. for us, we are the same distance from his office 22 miles, but from here it takes him 30 minutes, never has traffic, never gets on an interstate. from cary it was a good hour, in bumper to bumper very slow moving traffic. we also have a little more space out here (we are on an acre). From wake forest to durham (when we go to duke for instance) is 45 minutes. Wake forest is definiitely in a boom right now, and the housing appreciation is nice....we bought in our neighborhood a year ago, and they are building a house in our culdesac that is 700 square feet smaller and on the market for 40k more than we paid for our house.
anyhow, if you want more details about the outerlying areas of wake county, send me a private message, because i don't want to say anything about a town to offend anyone else on the board.
I was just teasing you about the long message.......i meant were you more exhausted just thinking about dc traffic.
um...anyway, wake forest to downtown raleigh, I just did it today....40 minutes. that is going straight down capital blvd (us 1 as it is also called) runs from downtown north to virginia! some times it can be longer by a few minutes because of the number of lights on capital blvd. That 40 minutes includes the 10 minutes it takes me to get to capital blvd in wake forest.
leigh
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how bout Wake Forest to downtown Raleigh
