[BBLISA] Kind of moving to Boston

[K.M.Peterson]

Tabor made a good point when reponding to Luke:

 > On Fri, Sep 24, 2004 at 12:19:28AM -0500,
 > Luke A. Kanies <luke at madstop.com> is thought to have said:
 >
 >> Either way, I need to find a place to kind-of live.  I figure it 
makes
 >> the
 >> most sense to find a house looking for housemates.  I'll be working 
in
 >> Waltham, but I plan on trying to live without a car, so I'd like to 
live
 >> somewhere slightly more central than Waltham -- I'm thinking 
something
 >> no
 >> more than 3-5 miles from Waltham, preferably pretty directly East so
 >> that
 >> it's close to just about everything.
 >>
[snip]

saying:

 >
 > Well, honestly it can be kind of hard to work in Waltham without a 
car.
 > The
 > area where all of the tech companies inhabit is kind of spread out and
 > filled with office parks near I-95. If you're a biker it's probably 
not a
 > big deal, but we're also coming up on the winter season which could 
make
 > things pretty difficult w/o a car.
 >

And I'd add:

It's really challenging living outside of the central core without a 
car.

I'm not even sure that Watertown is a good bet.  It's served by a 
number of bus lines, but your "single seat" rides to the core on the 
bus are limited to Harvard Square or Kenmore Square.  The density there 
isn't quite enough to support being able to do all of your errands on 
foot or bike, IMO.

I think that you may want to stick to a zone of within 10 minutes walk 
of a rapid transit line (referred to by their color here).  You get a 
great deal of range with a choice like that; downtown is one "seat 
trip" and you often have more than one route to use to get to a 
destination.

I'd also point out that riding in the winter isn't solely an issue of 
the cold (I'm fairly immune to that myself) but a lack of daylight, the 
danger of heavy traffic on non bicycle-friendly roads (like the 
Prospect Hill area) and weather with freezing precip - add that 
together and you have a very hazardous and wearing lifestyle for nearly 
a third of the year.

I would suggest Somerville.  Much more urban than Watertown, has a 
nightlife, and the Davis Square area is on the Red Line.  Probably most 
affordable area in that general direction (although parts of East 
Arlington are only about 15 minute walk from the Red Line, and a hotbed 
of cycling activity).

A couple more things.  First, there isn't really a good riding route in 
my experience to the Prospect Hill environs from the East.  I may be 
wrong, but this is one of those places where all traffic from the East 
goes on one nasty road.  Most all traffic from North and South are on 
128/I-95, and it all comes together in one big intersection that can be 
very... interesting.  As far as I know, there is not a "direct" route 
from the East that I'd want to commute on.

I believe at one point there was a shuttle from Alewife (Red Line) to 
that area - see http://www.128bc.org/shuttles/s-route3x.html .

Finally, should you move to a reasonably high-density area near the 
core, there's a car sharing service that I've joined called Zipcar - 
see http://www.zipcar.com - that's likely going to let me dump my car 
entirely.  Seems to work very well, and their web-based reservation 
systems are kinda cool, too...

Note this is all written from the prospect of someone who has tried to 
remain living in an interesting place (Brookline, in my case) while 
dealing with commutes to less-interesting places (Amherst, NH; 
Framingham, Lexington, Burlington, Bedford, Billerica, Quincy, and yes, 
Waltham, Mass.).  If the work is really at the center of your life, 
then you should by all means try to find a place in Waltham and 
eliminate your commute, but if not then I urge you to find a place more 
to your liking to live.  You're cutting off a chunk to go without a 
car, just make sure it's the _right_ chunk.

_KMP