moderndukes t1_j1gmdg6 wrote on December 24, 2022 at 4:38 AM

From comments I see you’ll be working in Kernewood and your partner in Capitol Hill. The absolute best places for you to live then would either be Capitol Hill or near Penn Station and one of you takes the train to the other city. Especially if it’s just 3 days a week of commuting for you, I’d say to live in Capitol Hill and walk over to Union Station, take any of dozens of trains that go between the cities in the morning for a 30-50 minute ride, then figure out transportation up to Kernewood. The total commute from Union to Kernewood would be around 1’15”, and most of that is on a train that allows you to do work or relax rather than drive. And if it’s hybridized, your work might even be cool with you “clocking in” when the train leaves Union Station and being available remotely for that time (some employers play ball with this so see about it).

Now if your partner is also hybridized in his schedule, maybe try Mount Vernon Baltimore instead of Capitol Hill. It’s in walking distance to the train station and would possibly be half as expensive to find a place than Capitol Hill. As someone who’s worked in DC from Baltimore for years and lived in DC for two, I cannot emphasize harder just how much cheaper it is to live in Baltimore than DC. Like my entire home mortgage is less than I was paying for a small bedroom in a two bed in Truxton Circle (and that place was a steal).

I just would not recommend you living anywhere in DC and driving for rush hour. The two cities are super close, yes, but to get to Kernewood via highways is like trying to get to Adams Morgan, so unless off peak hours you’re looking at a long commute from somewhere like Capitol Hill. A compromise suburb just means both of you will have to commute and it doesn’t necessarily sound like either of you are looking for a suburban lifestyle from the comments. Also, there are far more train options and trains with less stops (Amtrak has 1 or 2 stops between Penn and Union) than any of the MARC towns inbetween.

tl;dr: Amtrak and MARC are your friends in this, look at things near the train stations and you both should be happy

Appropriate-Algae-82 OP t1_j1rw753 wrote on December 26, 2022 at 10:35 PM

Thanks for your comment. The main problem is the transportation once I get to Penn Station. I've been told the buses are really unreliable and that biking wouldn't be an option. Do you disagree? If I didn't have to drive it that would make a big difference.

moderndukes t1_j1s9hdj wrote on December 27, 2022 at 12:17 AM

I don’t currently take the busses in Baltimore so I’m not an expert. When I would, they weren’t quite as reliable as WMATA, but it’s also a 10-15 minute bus ride on a major route so there’s only so it’s sort of the best case scenario route. I’d defer to others on this.

As far as biking - it’s around 3 miles with a 250ft incline, so I’d leave it up to you to decide if that’s doable. There’s a fully separated bike lane just a block over from Penn Station on Maryland Ave that goes all the way up to that area.

Appropriate-Algae-82 OP t1_j1sa5p5 wrote on December 27, 2022 at 12:22 AM

This is really helpful to know about the bike lane thank you. Are there blue bikes there? Or I'd need to bring my own on the train?

moderndukes t1_j1scdps wrote on December 27, 2022 at 12:40 AM

It’s one of the better maintained of the fully-separated bike lanes too. Bikemore has a GIS map with labels for all the bike lanes in the city - as you can see, the corridor you’d be biking has a bunch of separated or buffered bike lanes, arguably the best in the city.

Baltimore had something like Bluebike for a bit but the vendor had a huge maintenance backlog and the city just cancelled it. Now we have a hodgepodge of dockless bikes and scooters; I believe it’s Spin, Bird, and Superpedestrian at the moment. (DC’s Capital Bikeshare is a great system, btw - some healthcare plans and employers in DC will subsidize membership, along with transit like Metro and MARC.)

You can bring bikes on the train.