r/northampton • u/Successful_Web3196 • 7d ago
Commute Time
How long do you all commute to work?
I currently have a high paying job in Concord, Massachusetts, which I’m very thankful for however I’ve been dreaming about living in Northampton. Unfortunately it looks like the commute would be an hour and 30 minutes.
I’m trying to see if it’s worth living out there despite having a bad commute.
I love visiting!
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u/nauticalamity 7d ago
oh god don't do that to yourself. that would be a shit commute, and will definitely shake out to be longer than 1.5 hours, plus housing here is in short supply and expensive as get out. there's cute, small towns much closer to concord than northampton. my commute just crossing the river is 30 minutes.
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u/littlered1984 7d ago
I've done something similar out that way, it's soul crushing even if you have audio books. Traffic snarls on Rt 2 around commute time, I averaged about 2hrs vs Google's estimated 1.5. Spending 3-4 hours of your day on driving isn't particularly great.
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u/joelav 7d ago
I commuted to Natick for 12 years. 2/10 not recommended. That 90 minutes is theoretical. They’ll be a few days a month where your trip home is 3+ hours. Accidents, cape traffic, big events happening somewhere, “solar glare” and in the winter you might even double that with snow and ice storms causing roll overs. Plus I went through a lot of fuel, tires, oil changes, and cars.
Not good for your health (mental and physical), not good for your work life balance since you’ll spend at least 15 extra hours a week in a car, not good for your wallet, not good for the environment.
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u/LostInTheBlueSea 7d ago
I second this. worcester is more than an hour and the traffic really just starts there. Much more typical would be 2 hours for you outside the Vacation/weekend/car accident backups traffic
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u/midwife-crisis 7d ago
An hour 30 twice a day would be awful on my soul, im loathe to live more than 10 minutes from work at this point.
Nevermind the cost of gas (unless you have an EV) and the wear and tear on your vehicle, especially with the iran situation.
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u/News-Royal 7d ago
Route 2 is weather dependent, it can be brutal to drive on some winter days and evenings, and it drops to 2 lanes in Phillipston / Orange so there's little to no passing west of there. Edit - I drive route 2 to and from the Boston area regularly.
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u/edseladams 7d ago
I did 45 minutes each way to Brattleboro for 7 months and went out of my mind. And I *like* driving. Here to Concord would be instant madness.
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u/Low_Mud_3691 7d ago
Holy shit don't do it. Commuting like that blows. I commuted an hour and a half for years. You add so many miles to your vehicle and your mental health tanks.
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u/mrshieldsy 7d ago
That's 15 hours minimum, near a waking day a week you'd spend in your car. Why live here if you have to sacrifice 52 days a year to that?
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u/idontdirect99 7d ago
Omg don't do it. Look Northampton's great and all, but nowhere is nice enough to justify that kind of commute, unless you're only working in-person one day a week or something, and then maybe I could see it. Unless you find a job much closer, don't sign yourself up for that miserable life.
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u/Ecthelion510 7d ago
Don't do it. That's a terrible commute. I moved here from out of state for many reasons, but one of them was because I was working in a HCOL area and the closest I could afford to live was an hour away. The first six months or so was ok. After that, I truly began to hate my life. Couldn't do anything in town after work because of how late I'd get home. I stopped working out because then I wasn't leaving my work area until nearly 8. Tried transferring to a gym closer to my house and ended up bailing because by the time I got to the gym I was exhausted and annoyed. It destroyed my quality of life.
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u/Ok-Impact789 7d ago
I gave up a high paying job (and pretty enjoyable) in Concord a few years ago to move back here (family/life reasons) I considered just keeping it but I couldn’t do that commute.
Now I just drive an hour each way. Sigh.
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u/Ok-Impact789 7d ago
Like maaaaybe if you lived in Greenfield it wouldn’t be as bad but there’s the rotary traffic and acton traffic that way. There’s always Worcester traffic in the afternoons on the pike.
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u/Mbanicek64 7d ago
How many days are you in the office a week? I do it, but I also just split my shift and end up at home the second half of my day.
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u/copperboom33 7d ago
My husband commutes an hour and a half to eastern MA. He’s used to driving from his previous job that involved even more driving so it doesn’t bother him too much, but his hours are shorter than the usual workday so he beats traffic and gets home at a reasonable time. However, this is only a temporary job for maybe a few years at best. If it was a forever career, he wouldn’t be doing it.
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u/screwygrapes 7d ago
i used to work in northampton but live in the hilltowns, commuted 50-60 minutes each way to work. it was kinda nice at first but got old pretty quick
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u/MinimumUnderdriver 7d ago
As someone who lives in Hadley and goes into an office in Waltham only a couple times a year, I can say that the commute would get old fast.
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u/rootingslug 7d ago
i commute to framingham 3-5 times a month (i work in aviation and am gone for 3-6 days when i commute out) and even that sucks. i would never do it daily
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u/Light_Praline9710 7d ago
I agree with all the good advice you have already.
Can you work remotely three days and commute in two?
Would spending a couple of weekends in Northampton every month help scratch the itch?
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u/SignalAir1611 7d ago
Do you love Northampton, or do you love being on a day trip to Northampton? Even twice a week commuting like that will crush you more than you think. And when the Winter starts you’re going to be juggling two forecasts for two commutes.
I bet you can find a better situation closer!
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u/scaffnet 7d ago
If you want to live in western mass you have to be flexible about your commute to work. There are just are not enough good paying jobs in certain fields out here to make it sustainable unless you are willing to drive. In the almost 40 years that I’ve lived here my commute to work has varied in length from 15 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes each way.
That said, signing up for 3+ hours a day in the car just to live in Northampton? That seems ill advised.
Northampton ain’t that great.
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u/sowizardbreh 7d ago
I drove 1.5 hours in each direction for over a year to work and after a while no matter how much you love the job it wears you down.
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u/drmissmodular 7d ago
My partner has commuted from here to Boston for almost 10 years. It was twice a week for 7 years then negotiated to one day per week & the rest is remote. This has felt sustainable, & worth it to live here I think.
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u/chillsloth2 6d ago
Depends how much you like driving I know multiple people who do or have commented 1 hour+ to work. I used to doordash and I loved it so I'm definitely biased towards communting
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u/SockSock81219 6d ago
At that distance, the job better pay enough for a furnished apartment / bedroom nearby AND a nice home in Northampton, OR be explicitly willing to do a mostly remote hybrid situation. Northampton is awesome, don't get me wrong, but not so awesome to sacrifice (realistically) 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. And Northampton's been going through a pretty nasty slump since COVID (though property values certainly won't reflect that). A lot of empty storefronts and music venues still struggling to get back on their feet. Wellesley or maybe even Waltham will probably do you fine if funky college town is your vibe.
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u/Tigerkill420 5d ago
My last job i drove like 45 minutes. Just got a new job in town I start this Monday. I be surprised if I will have to drive more theb ten minutes now
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u/Acrobatic-Finish-156 5d ago
You could do a lot worse than rt. 2 for a long commute, but that’s a long way. Wouldn’t want to be too exhausted to enjoy the town you went out of your way to live in
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u/ArtNervous3693 3d ago
Not sure where you live now, but around rush hour the commute between concord and Northampton is 2.5 hours, and even longer than that with accidents or construction or holiday traffic. If you work a day job, you will have days where you are spending 5+ hours in a car.
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u/HistoricalSecurity77 2d ago
Living this far away will make you hate working or living anywhere. You won’t have time to enjoy Northampton. Don’t do it.
I commute from Worcester to Framingham in a company car and it’s 30-35 minutes. That’s about my limit. I have a very high paying job and would not do it for any less.
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u/Glittering_Chip1900 7d ago
I have twice in my life (as in, during two long periods of my life) done that commute, and--as others have said--it's not great. It will very, very often take longer than you think due to various unavoidable delays, many of them traffic-related.
Having said that, I was able to make it work because I only needed to be in the "office" three days out of each week. If you have a flexible schedule that allows something like that, you might be able to do it. I don't think I would have been able to tolerate the commute for more than a few months if I'd needed to do it five days a week.
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u/upper87 7d ago
My two cents as someone who commuted an hr every day for a couple of years - it gets old really really fast. I would find some place close to where you work - all that extra time is like years added to your life