Could be moving to Boston

Boston drivers are crazily, ridiculously good and aggressive on both the road and the track. Onramps are measured in feet, exits ten to the mile, lanes eight feet wide sometimes, and don't trust any street signs.

We have the lowest fatality rate of any state despite driving like lunatics. You'll see beat-up old clunkers with tons of rust, rotten trim falling off, no hubcaps, etc, and not a scratch on the body aside from maybe a parking ding on the bumper. This contrasts with where I live now in Texas, the home of "amateur flame surfacing".

You've got to hustle to keep up. The main reason no dominant NASCAR driver has come off of our short tracks is it takes till he's 35 before he's good enough to dominate here. Our best kart racer is nearly sixty, our best autocrosser nearly seventy - and the other claimants to those titles aren't spring chickens either.

Look for a place on the south shore and take the commuter train into Boston. West and North of the city sees much more snow. Plymouth is nice and rent is somewhat reasonable compared to places closer to the city.

In reply to russde:

I can tell you absolutely everything about it...

I was stationed aboard CGC Escanaba, one of the 270's out of Boston. What unit is she going to?

Gimme a PM, and I'll fill you in on everything you need to know.

I re-read your post, she's at the station, cool.

Gov't Housing is South at Naval Air Station South Weymouth. Housing ain't bad at all, and the price is right...

I was an E-3 with a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom house. Washer/Dryer, front yard/back yard, in a VERY nice area 20 minutes south of Boston. I had 1 house mate, one of the cooks from my ship.

I'm a BM2 at a Station in NJ. If you or her need anything at all, hit me up on here and well swap contact info.

I assume she will be stationed at the Coastguard over on commercial street? My office is on the other side of the north end (5 minute walk) To get to that part of town you need to look at community that are serviced by North Station (the purple line) We also have a south station (the purple line as well but the two are not connected). Ya this is Boston.

Driving in Boston is not bad you just have to know the place (like any city) I drive in every day from Maynard. Really not a bad commute. You don't want to get anywhere near the south shore and try to drive in to Boston. the south east expressway (I 93 south of Boston) is a perpetual PITA. I93 north is not much better.

Trying to get a place in walking distance from your wifes work will cost you!!!! That is a very desirable part of town.

If you are interested My partner just put his place up for rent. It is on mass av in Arlington (about a 1/4 mile north of the intersection of rout 60 and Mass Av. You have bus service that gets you to the red line (alewife) and that will get you in to the city either directly or you can connect to the train (purple line) and go to North station (very close to your wife's new station).

Us Boston drivers are not all that bad just aggressive. Expect to be cut off! Signals are a dissemination of information the the enemy. Then there are Taxi drivers. They are horrible. However we have allot of "fun" roads. Driving in Boston / Mass is a recreational activity. Get over the ever present small group of SOB's and it really is not that bad.

NOW the good info is starting to flow in...thanks guys.

FFRY, message sent. TR8todd, I'll check into those areas. Dean1484, thanks for the offer, but I'm hoping for his sake that your partners place is rented out long before we move; but I will take a look at the North Station.

as Dave said, www.hillclimb.org Try a hillclimb, and you'll love it.

I 2nd the South Shore option(Quincy/Braintree/Weymouth). It's very easy using public transport to get in & often more cost effective than driving/parking. I work over in Faneuil Hall & the garages around me average $25 a day to park. For $60 a month I get a T pass & it take me on average 45 minutes to get in the city from Quincy.

Zombie thread, resurrected.

I may or may not be talking to a potential employer about a potential job in Boston, MA . One question I have from poking around Zillow is - how far do you have to go outside town to be able to find a place with a 2-3 car garage? Most of the stuff I've seen in our price range ($300k-$500k) were rather quaint, small older houses on lots that were basically too small to support a proper garage (I was looking North towards Salem if that makes a difference).

Prices inside the 495 belt can be a bit.... mean.

I'm 30 minutes outside of the city with plenty of land (13 acres) and my town has plenty of land in it to go around.

Look on rt 95 around Danvers and north. Caution Rt 128 turns into a parking lot at rush hour as does the Mass Pike.

I love the North - North Shore. Beautiful place and people aren't packed on top of eachother. Can't suggest it highly enough.

I'm in Billerica, which is actually not as terrible a commute as I thought it would be. Town also has plenty of space for garages and such - though my house unfortunately does not. Will you be working in Boston proper?

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

RexSeven wrote: COM Car club does track days at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

NHIS road course is surprisingly good for an oval track but it is brutally unforgiving. Reasonable distance to good road courses is one area where Boston lacks for a major city. Lime Rock is the next closest at about 3-4hrs and Montecello, Watkins and Mosport are the next closest at around 6-8hr drives that I can think of.

Thompson's new road course is open. NE Ct.

At this point in time it's an educated guess where I'd be working as I don't know their office location yet, but I would expect it to be in the financial district. I guess my preferred commute option into town would be by public transport and by car/motorcycle to the point where I can jump on public transport.

BTW, they do chuck lots of salt on the roads there, right?

All of the salt. Sometimes when it's not even snowing much.

Pretty much any major route into the city is going to be a parking lot at rush hour, but I've found route 2 to not be bad. The commuter rail is great but if you're outside typical commuting times, it could potentially be running only every hour or so. Makes it a real bitch when you come running into the station and see the train pulling out, but at least there's a bar in there (if it's north station)

Dude, Plymouth! Lots of car guys down here. Commuter train straight into Boston. Lots of affordable houses with land and big garages. Its the only republican stronghold in the most democratic state in the country, so that should tell you something about the majority of the people that live and work down here.

iceracer wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

RexSeven wrote: COM Car club does track days at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

NHIS road course is surprisingly good for an oval track but it is brutally unforgiving. Reasonable distance to good road courses is one area where Boston lacks for a major city. Lime Rock is the next closest at about 3-4hrs and Montecello, Watkins and Mosport are the next closest at around 6-8hr drives that I can think of.

Thompson's new road course is open. NE Ct.

And Palmer motorsports park is slated to open June 2015, and the course drive through looks awesome!

Look in my town (Maynard) Seriously a great place to live and commuter rail is a short drive or bike ride away. I got 2 acres and 2000sf house for less than 250K (no garage) This was 5-6 years ago through. You should be able to get what you are looking for about 300K-350K in my town.

And I forgot the schools are good and there is a nice down town with some nightlife. AND the most important thing is An Advanced Auto just opened up in town making getting parts very easy.

Schools are (maybe fortunately) not a big concern of ours - no kids, too old to acquire them.

Thanks for all the suggestions, given that I'm approaching this from "Southwest scale" and am used to commuting fairly long distances, there were certainly some interesting properties in a 30-mile-ish radius. So far the favourite would be an old house in Seaford NH (yeah, I know, it's outside the 30 mile radius) on four acres with eight garage spaces...

Anyway, we'll have to see where this whole discussion with the company leads to in the first place.

I'm about 45min from City center in New Hampshire. If I were to commute into the city every day and need a big garage, I'd be either in the Canton/South west suburbs or the Chelmsford/Billerica area Northwest. Traffic is going to suck regardless during rush hour, so might as well go into a nice neighborhood.

I live in Middleboro, which is next to Plymouth. It's WAY south of Boston, and we are the last stop on the Commuter Rail. I pretty much moved here because land was cheap and it is quiet. The town has some real rural spots which are absolutely beautiful, but like most towns there are some not-so-great areas as well.

One thing I like about Middleboro is that being a gearhead is accepted and perfectly OK. In some of the more uppity towns, people will complain if an "old car" is in your driveway. Not here! My trash guy, as well as my neighbor down the street, salutes my Trans Am on a regular basis. We even have car shows during the summer at the TOWN HALL. We also have a few well-stocked junkyards right in town. There are tons of awesome country roads to drive on down here, and there are two major highways (495 and 3) nearby.

If you have more money and want to look on the South Shore, check out Hanover and Hanson. I have a bunch of friends that live there, and they both have easy commuter rail access. They all love it.

I'm originally from Hingham, which is a Yuppie town and everything is $$$$$$$ there. It is a beautiful looking old New England town filled with shiny happy people.

The striped bass can be big just offshore.(not my fish)