Where to live - Least bad commute(s) (San Jose, San Francisco: school district, income)

[Onward from DC]

Hi,


My fiance and I are looking to relocate to the area. She has an offer coming that will require split her work at two locations, one in Palo Alto and one in someplace called San Martin further south. She's really excited about the job, exactly what she wants to do. Meanwhile I may have an angle on a job in SF proper.

I'm trying to figure out if there's some place we could live where the disparate work locations would work out as far as us ever actually seeing each other.

Pulling up a map, Palo Alto seems to be in the middle of the extremes. We're coming from DC and no strangers to high rents, paying just under $2,000/month for a 1 bed on a combined income of around $100k, which would go up to between $120k-$150k there. From what I'm reading I'm thinking we could get a decent 1 bedroom that's not a dump and not kill ourselves paying for it what with no kids (is this a reasonable assumption?)

But more importantly, is there a better compromise location with one of us having to go south quite a ways periodically and the other having to go north? I've been reading over the Cal Train, would locating further south and taking the rail up be faster/better/cheaper than driving? Suggestions appreciated, and if there's another thread on this or something like it I've missed, please let me know.


Many thanks,
Nicholas

[mayorhaggar]

You mean locating further south of Palo Alto? San Jose to SF is just about exactly an hour on Caltrain and that's with the Baby Bullet express train. Palo Alto to SF is about 37 minutes which isn't too bad. Palo Alto is expensive but I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a decent 1br there for $2000 or a bit less. The only problem with Caltrain is that the terminus station in SF is about a 20 minute walk from where most office buildings are in downtown SF. If your office is right by the station then it's really convenient, less so if you have to schlep 20 minutes.

[capoeira]

Originally Posted by Onward from DC

But more importantly, is there a better compromise location with one of us having to go south quite a ways periodically and the other having to go north?

Mountain View. Look at how Highway 85 directly connects 280 & 101. Compare to the slow trek on Page Mill Rd. Also in Palo Alto you are paying a lot of extra $$ for the privilege of being in the highest rated school district.

[sonarrat]

San Martin is still like the whole area used to be 80 years ago: horse ranches and vineyards with a compact old downtown. It's pretty but there's not much there. There are three trains north in the morning out of SM and three south in the evening, but they're talking about cutting all service south of the San Jose Diridon Station, so you might get caught in a difficult situation if you try to depend on Caltrain for your commute..

[humboldtrat]

This will be ugly! It's 40 miles between San Francisco and Palo Alto and San Martin is about 40 miles south of Palo Alto. That's a lot of driving!

Maybe Santa Clara, Sunnyvale or Mountain View near the Caltrain stations.

Caltrain is going broke is thinking about cutting the number of trains in half and discontinuing use of many stations. I wouldn't count on Caltrain in the future. www.ktvu.com/news/26868162/detail.html