Commuting by Community

July 27th, 2006

Finding a home in close proximity to where you work may not rank as high in your home search as finding good neighborhoods or schools. However, if you are looking to live in Gresham, but work in Hillsboro, you’re going to spend a lot of time listening to talk radio.

In response to a reader’s question, I’ve prepared a list of suburban communities below, with their distance and drive times to downtown Portland.

Caveat: I generated this table using Google Maps, generically using its definition of the center of each city to downtown Portland as its starting and ending points. If you live on the outskirts of one of the communities, your mileage could be significantly longer or shorter. This table also does not take into account rush hour traffic loads, but I am on the lookout for such a study.

Distance and Time to Downtown Portland

In my experience, commutes get complicated any time you need to cross the Willamette River (downtown, Sellwood Bridge, Oregon City). The east/west commute using Highway 26 and the Banfield is a challenge just about every day. Other congested routes include Interstate 5 to and from Vancouver across the Columbia River, as well as Interstate 5 between downtown and Wilsonville south.

For public transportation users, Google is experimenting specifically in Portland with it’s Transit Trip Planner (http://www.google.com/transit). You enter starting and ending addresses, and the planner will provide detailed instructions on where, when, and how to use the bus and MAX lines to get you there. You can also toggle the Drive setting to compare time and costs between public transportation and driving. Tri-Met’s Trip Planner may be a more definitive resource.

Technorati Tags: commuting, transit, suburbs, Portland, drive

Photo by Bringo under Creative Commons license.

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Entry Filed under: Lifestyle, Relocation