Tabor made a good point when reponding to Luke:
> On Fri, Sep 24, 2004 at 12:19:28AM -0500,
> Luke A. Kanies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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
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