moving to NOVA (Arlington, Alexandria, Reston: condos, neighborhoods, contractor)

[novabound]

I'm going to be working for a defense contractor near Tysons Corner, but don't know which town I'd like to live in. I'm looking for an area that is about a half hour commute but not too pricey. How long is the commute from ashburn during rush hour? And any suggestions on nice neighborhoods that aren't too urban? I'm moving in a week and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

[VT Hokie 2007]

I live in Tysons Corner--the place is awesome. If you can afford it, I'd say live around Tysons--Vienna, Falls Church, Dunn Loring, Great Falls, McLean. Commute from Ashburn would probably be an hour, give or take. I'm not sure there are areas in Northern Virginia that "aren't too pricey." I guess you could live down 66 west a little ways. There seem to be some "affordable" condos on the market in that area, but rush hour coming from the west in the morning and returning to the west in the evening is total gridlock.

The only real "urban" areas in Northern Virginia would be Arlington, downtown Alexandria, parts of Annandale and downtown of the City of Falls Church. The rest of Northern Virginia is just an enormous suburb. Take your pick--most Northern Virginia towns and cities are pretty much the same with roughly equal education, taxes, and equally long commutes. Traffic won't ease up as you move further out; on the contrary, traffic gets worse the further one moves out.

One other piece--not a human being in Northern Virginia calls the area "NOVA." When people say, "NOVA" they are talking about Northern Virginia Community College.

Good luck.

[Lookingforasafehome]

beautiful area but beware of Tysons Corner! My hubby and I travel up that way alot, and he used to live there some years ago and we always steer clear of that area, as much as possible during rush hour! WE call it tyeons mess! LOL! But it is beautiful there, your lucky to be moving up that way! Best of luck to you!~

[dullnboring]

I live in Ashburn. Tysons Corner is 18 miles away and a commute on Route 7 during NON-rush hour traffic, will take you approximately 30 minutes (give or take a few depending on how many red lights you hit). You can shave off five or six minutes from that commute if you take the Dulles Toll Road. The general calculation for rush hour commutes I've found is to multiply the "average" non-rush hour commute by 1.5 or 2, so I would assume that a commute during rush hour would run anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, and again, you can shave off maybe 10-12 minutes from that by using the Toll Road.

I can't say that I'd recommend living in Ashburn. The location in my opinion is pretty inconvenient unless you happen to work and socialize in Ashburn, Sterling, Leesburg or Dulles. I would personally move closer in to Tysons. I've always felt that if you live outside of the Metro coverage area (i.e. the Outer Beltway) that you should try to live within 10 miles of your workplace just because traffic and commutes are such a nightmare. You may want to check out Reston, in particular the areas around Lake Anne. I'm not sure if Reston what qualifies as urban since it seems to be a subjective term. Some people consider pretty much all of Northern Virginia urban just because of the traffic, the amount of people, and the frenzied pace of life, even if it's not urban in the high-density skyscraper sense of the word so if that's the type of urban you're looking to escape from, well, you'd have to go really far out to find it (way more than an hour's commute) but otherwise, like Hokie said, pretty much any place in Northern Virginia outside of the inner-most suburbs is suburban in nature.

[tcountee]

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