I’m planning to move to SD in the next month. I’m looking at apartments, and unfortunately will not have much of a chance to scope them out in person prior to signing. I’ve been testing commute times in Google Maps beginning at 8:30am from apartments to work, mostly including going northbound along I-5 from near downtown SD to the outskirts. The times its estimating seem ridiculously fast, 16-26 minutes to go 15-20 miles during rush hour. Is this correct? Is it because most commuters are going the opposite direction?
If I were working in Carmel valley, personally, I wouldn’t live further south than like Mira mesa/UTC area, and even then the commute will probably be annoying sometimes. Exact commute time will matter too. Seriously 10 minutes can make an IMMENSE difference.
I’ve sat in the northbound traffic from pt loma to Solana beach at like 9am and it fucking SUCKS. I’ve had it take well over an hour, at like 4pm, to get from solana beach to the zoo area.
Imo, you’d be better off getting a place as close to work as you can afford, for a year, and feeling out the county/traffic during that time, to decide where you want to ultimately live. Each town has its own distinct vibe here.
The job would almost certainly make me have to deal with UTC traffic due to location. Relatively close proximity. Almost every apartment on my list is north of I-8, and a handful north of Balboa Ave. I’d love to have a super short commute but finding a compromise between availability, price, amenities, internet availability (you guys seriously have an awful internet situation), etc doesn’t make it very likely that I’ll have a rock bottom commute. I’d take wasting a few more precious minutes of my life every day to live in a nicer apartment. I don’t want to do more than 45 minutes round trip particularly, though. Apartments.com puts the “30 minute commute during rush hour” zone deep into downtown.