Need Help Figuring Out Commute!!

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Hi Everyone,

I am looking to relocate to San Diego from Boston soon. What is the commute like to Esconido from the different areas in San Diego? Is living in the Downtown area too far away? I heard that the traffic is ridiculous (worse than Boston?), so if anyone can me estimate commuting times I would really appreciate it. Thanks so much!!

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I can't help you with this but on mapquest.com you can get travel times from point a to point b. I have spent little time in the beautiful area of Sandy D but I lived in Boston for about 25 years and feel if you can live through Boston traffic you should have no problems in Sandy D. Best wishes

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Get yourself a "Thomas Guide" (probably for San Diego or San Diego County). It's a great large paperback of street/area maps and you will never get lost. I think you can find it by doing a google search of Thomas Guild or try Amazon.com.

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Escondido to Downtown is pretty far. Are you going to be working Downtown? You could check http://www.signonsandiego.com for real time traffic information. You'll see the slowdowns in the same spot everyday. The 15 from Mira Mesa to Escondido is always congested during peak times.

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Are you saying that you are going to live Downtown and commute TO Escondido? If so, roughly an hour to hour and 15 mins to commute, worse if there is an accident. Its really only about a 28 minute distance without heavy traffic, but traffic is pretty thick at rush hour times. But don't forget- if you will be doing nursing, you may be coming and going at slightly off-peak hours and that will help.

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Add on one hour for the slow-downs and accidents, and they do happen frequently. You may really want to reconsider a commute like that, especially if you are new to the area.

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I lived there for most of my life...until 1995. I left then. At that time..the commute (typical AM commute) from the north county (escondido area) to downtown san diego area was at least 2 hours....every single day. You get on the highway...and then you crawl most of the way. I doubt things have changed much. Part of the reason I left...other than the expense of living there (rent)

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I'm not familiar with San Diego specifically but ...

Keep in mind that in SoCal, it largely depends on what time you're going in. If you're leaving at 6 a.m. to work the 7-7 day shift, for example, that's typically a lot better than trying to go to work at 9 a.m. when the traffic really piles up.

Very few hospitals have you go in at 9 a.m. so ... I'm not sure why everybody's talking about peak rush hour traffic.

I've beat lots of "bad" commutes just by going in really early. The same thing applies when you're leaving at 7:30 at night ... you can beat a lot of traffic at that late hour because rush hour is over.

When I've worked 7-7 day shifts, the only time I've actually run into really bad traffic is on Friday evenings because my main freeway home is also the main route for weekend traffic out to Vegas. Or, when there's a bad accident ... which, actually, doesn't happen very often.

So I didn't work on Fridays because of that. In the end, a lot of it also depends on what shift you're working. Night shifts, of course, are the usually easiest commutes because you're often going against traffic with those shifts.

:typing

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Specializes in Registry, all over the place.
I lived there for most of my life...until 1995. I left then. At that time..the commute (typical AM commute) from the north county (escondido area) to downtown san diego area was at least 2 hours....every single day. You get on the highway...and then you crawl most of the way. I doubt things have changed much. Part of the reason I left...other than the expense of living there (rent)

This is truer than true, I've been here since 2004 and nothing has changed since '95 evidently. Unless you don't mind the commute and the highest gas prices in the nation I guess downtown would be okay. I used to work with a woman who lived in Escondido and her commute was about an hour and a half. There are places that are nice to live that are closer to Escondido, unles you really wanted to live downtown which isn't cheap either. It would be easier to come downtown when you wanted to hang out than to drive to Escondido and back twice a day. I'm getting agitated thinking about it for you!:uhoh21:

By the way, since most people have to commute for 2 hours, peak hours don't start here at 8-9am, they start to 'pile' at about 5:30-6:00am. 6am is the worst time to commute, as is anytime after 230-3pm. I live 3 exits away from school, coming home, it takes 7 minutes. On my way in the morning, 30 minutes. If you want to plan your shift around your commute, I think the best would be 11am-7pm or 11p. But all your day and night are gone!!!

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It will take you at least 40 minutes to get from downtown to Esco. Traffic sucks both ways especially on 163. I would either work closer to downtown or live closer to north county.. it will be a rough commute. Trust me..

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Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

IMHO, the traffic is not worse than Boston's, but my only real experience with Boston traffic is the route from the airport to Back Bay and the route taken by the red bus tour. As cities go, San Diego's downtown is actually pretty tame. As for the commute from Escondido to downtown, if you're going at rush hour, count on an average 1-1.5 hour commute and up to 2 hours on a bad day. If it isn't rush hour, it's not so bad. And if you're going opposite traffic, which it sounds like you will be (north in the morning, south in the afternoon?) it also won't be as bad... but there will still be pockets of heavy traffic, such as in the Miramar/Mira Mesa area and then again in Carmel Mountain Ranch.

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