Iselin, New Jersey

dagmaraka wrote:

So, tell us, Thomas. What do you like?

Well, I'm male, 38, incredibly affluent, unbelievably good-looking, and single. No really -- it's a shame the dog ate my picture. Oops, wrong online community ....

dagmaraka wrote:

Are you an urbanite? Or do you like to wake to birds chirping outside your windows (and i don't mean pigeons)? A mix?

No, I think I'm not really an urbanite. I find it important to have a city nearby, and I don't mind living in one -- but I don't have to. Birds chirping outside my window would absolutely be a plus. My ideal mix is close to what I have here in Munich. I live in the city, pretty close to where Walter's star marks it, but roads are lined with trees, so I can have both the city and the birds. That's pretty cool, and I'd love a place like this near Iselin. Also, the city doesn't have to be large to qualify as a "real" city for me. New Brunswick (pop. 110,000) would qualify, for example.

dagmaraka wrote:

Can you handle NYC (I know I can't, not even if I lived smack in the middle of the Central Park or other greenery)?

I could, and I love New York City. But I'm not sure I'm crazy enough about it to pay its astronomic rents.

dagmaraka wrote:

Can you handle the suburbs?

European suburbs maybe, but the mass-produced sprawl that's so typical for American suburbs depresses me. I might make an exception for suburbs with a historic core, with homes available in the core.

dagmaraka wrote:

In an ideal world, what would your living situation be?

Within a city, preferably a pre-Depression part of town, with trees, parks, and other enclaves of nature in walking distance. Shops for everyday purchases in walking distance too. Not too far from work (say, 30 minutes)

Good questions! They helped a lot in framing the issue. Thanks!

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jespah wrote:

Sneaky little vote in here for Wilmington, DE,

Wilmington does look nice, thanks so much for suggesting it! Maybe when I retire and commuting distance is no longer an option ....

Quote:

So -- one idea -- stick a compass in a map and draw a circle, with the radius being how far you want to commute (or the time spent commuting that you can absolutely take, such as one hour each way or whatever) and the stem being stuck into the center of Iselin or wherever the office is going to be. Then tell us what's within the circle.

That's basically what I've done with a one-dimensional circle, the dimension being the North-East railway corridor. I may want to revisit this when I decide I will buy a car after all, but basically what's within the circle is:

New Brunswick (including Highland Park)
Edison
Metuchen
Metropark (Iselin)
Linden
Elizabeth

So far, Metuchen and Highland park look the most attractive to me.

Jespah wrote:

In all honesty, I'd stick to NJ if I were you. There are a lot of fine cities and towns.

You're probably right.

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Thomas wrote:

My ideal mix is close to what I have here in Munich.

So it's something like this here ...

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Thomas, I have to be honest with you...

I have never known ONE person who lives in New Jersey that doesn't have a car.

I see a lot of people here have experience living there, but unless things have massively changed in the last decade, if you live and work there, you have a car.

Quite honestly, even in my 20's and 30's when I would go there to visit and meet up with old friends, one of the primary sources of entertainment was "Let's go for a ride"

Maybe it's a regional thing, but conversation and driving seem to go together up there. It gets you out and about to see what's new and going on.

If I lived there and didn't have a car, I'd feel housebound. New Jersey is NOT Manhatten.

Northern New Jersey is pretty much all sprawled out, has been since my childhood.

I'm going to go look at a map.

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Thomas might like having a car for the weekends, and taking public transportation to work. Some of my friends in San Francisco don't have cars.
They rent one when that want to go out of town - it's cheaper than owning one, for them.

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ossobuco wrote:

Thomas might like having a car for the weekends, and taking public transportation to work. Some of my friends in San Francisco don't have cars.
They rent one when that want to go out of town - it's cheaper than owning one, for them.

New Jersey is not San Francisco.

All I'm saying is, I've never known one single person that didn't own a car, nor could I imagine living there without one.

If he chose to live somewhere in NJ where he would have to rely on public transportation most of the time, he is going to severely limit the number of places he can live. Not only that, but it's going to seriously limit things he can do outside of work.

Yeah, it's been a long time since I lived there, but that much I remember. Unless you want your life to be one inconvenience after another, you need a car.

In fact, to use public transportation, it's not uncommon to use your car to get to the place where public transit is available.

I'm just trying to be realistic.

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Well glory be and pass the cookies! I'm breathless with glee. I didn't want to say it........well, I almost all but said it, but I think you would have been very unhappy in Dallas. And goody, maybe we can see you in January when we're in New York. Good luck finding a place to live. I can only cheer you on now because I don't know nuttin about Joisey. Have you talked to Frank yet? He knows all about it. He even ran for mayor of his town in NJ, or some such thing.

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http://pics.city-data.com/ctransp/14082.png

Daytime population change due to commuting: +4,147 (+24.8%)
Workers who live and work in this place: 916 (11.0%)

I'm looking for bus and train schedules

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Chai wrote:

Thomas, I have to be honest with you...

I have never known ONE person who lives in New Jersey that doesn't have a car.

I see a lot of people here have experience living there, but unless things have massively changed in the last decade, if you live and work there, you have a car.

Quite honestly, even in my 20's and 30's when I would go there to visit and meet up with old friends, one of the primary sources of entertainment was "Let's go for a ride"

Maybe it's a regional thing, but conversation and driving seem to go together up there. It gets you out and about to see what's new and going on.

If I lived there and didn't have a car, I'd feel housebound. New Jersey is NOT Manhatten.

Northern New Jersey is pretty much all sprawled out, has been since my childhood.

I'm going to go look at a map.

Then again, you could live in New York and commute on the NJ Railroad. That could be fun.

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We don't know that Thomas is a practiced driver. Maybe he's an autobahn automaniac. Or not. I'd hate to be learning while driving to work that first day on what everyone says are packed roads.

He may buy a car right away, or not. He'll have a lot on his mind. He may end up using the car he buys only on weekends. If he gets a place that is transportation accessible to Iselin, he can make up his mind over a more extended period of time.

Uh, I know SF ain't New Jersey.

To me they both have fab transportation, me being from LA.

(and I've known people who get around by bicycle in LA).

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I still think renting a car 4x a month is less expensive than purchasing one.

Thomas is a great walker...

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I'm not sure if they've talked yet - but the Frankie/Thomas connection is possible - the info's been provided. To top things off, Frankie's got a pal who works for the same company as Thomas, in New Jersey.

Some communities are walker-friendly, Manhattan is one of them. Most places I've experienced in the U.S. aren't. You need a certain size and age of city for that to be possible.

I think the idea of getting into a temp place for 6 - 12 months is good - get to know the community/area, figure out if shopping without a car is possible, that sort of thing.

~~~

As a result of a weirdness at my job, I do know that there are commuter buses that take people to the trains that get them around, in the area of New Jersey Thomas is considering. Most people need cars to get to those buses that get them to the trains. That seems a very special type of Americanism to me.

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Bus Terminals

Atlantic City Bus Terminal
1995 Atlantic Avenue
Atlantic City , NJ 08401

Journal Square Transportation Center
One PATH Plaza
Jersey City, NJ 07306

Broadway Terminal
22 Broadway
Paterson, NJ 07505

Lakewood Bus Terminal
1st & Lexington Aves.
Lakewood, NJ 08701

Walter Rand Transportation Center
100 Broadway
Camden, NJ 08102

Metropark Rail Station
Middlesex-Essex Tpke.
Iselin, NJ 08830

Cape May Transportation Center
609 Lafayette St.
Cape May, NJ 08204

New Brunswick Rail Station
French & Albany Sts.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Toms River Twp. Park-Ride
Highland Pkwy. South
Toms River, NJ 08753

Newark Penn Station
Raymond Plaza West
Newark, NJ 07105

East Brunswick Transportation Center
Rte. 18 & Tices Lane
East Brunswick, NJ 08816

Ocean City Transportation Center
10th St. & Haven Ave.
Ocean City, NJ 08226

Fort Dix Transportation Building
Airfield Rd. at Pemberton Rd.
Fort Dix, NJ 08640

Passaic Bus Terminal
Main Ave.
Passaic, NJ 07055

Freehold Centre
Broad & Freehold Ave.
Freehold, NJ 07728

Pleasantville Bus Terminal
W. Jersey Ave. at Main St.
Pleasantville, NJ 08232

George Washington Bridge Bus Station
4211 Broadway
New York, NY 10018

Port Authority Bus Terminal
W. 41st. St. & 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10018

Greyhound Bus Terminal
1001 Filbert St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Ridgewood Bus Terminal
Van Neste Sq.
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

Hackensack Bus Transfer
Moore & River Sts.
Hackensack, NJ 07601

Trenton Rail Station
S. Clinton & Raoul Wallenberg Ave.
Trenton, NJ 08650

Hoboken Terminal
One Hudson Place
Hoboken, NJ 07030

Vineland Transportation Center
110 W. Landis Ave.
Vineland, NJ 08360

Irvington Bus Terminal
1085 Clinton Ave.
Irvington, NJ 07111

Wildwood Bus Terminal
4510 Washington Ave.
Wildwood, NJ 08260

James J. Howard Transportation Center
Cookman Ave.
Asbury Park, NJ 07712

How do you get to the bus station?

Now I'm going to look at trains...

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Here's a really good link....all the trains and an interactive schedule.

Iselin is part of incorporated Woodbridge, so pick that, unless you are going amtrac.

New Jersey Train Schedule

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I used to bus/train/bike it around Maplewood and was fine. The train is very easy to get to all bigger cities, for everything else there are buses. And of course the bike will get you anywhere you might need to. Biking in Jersey is actually rather nice. Don't know if I would do it permanently (shopping might be a pain in the neck without a car) - but I can see how it could work with a Zipcar for weeends or somesuch. If you pay the annual fee to Zipcar, the hourly rates get real cheap, and you might really end up needed a car only once or twice a week for errands or for a trip.
Then again, parking really is not much of an issue in the smaller towns of Jersey, and having a small car for comfort and fun would make sense... You will be OK if you start out without one, but I foretell that you will get one eventually. Perhaps even real soon.

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ehBeth wrote:

I'm not sure if they've talked yet - but the Frankie/Thomas connection is possible - the info's been provided. To top things off, Frankie's got a pal who works for the same company as Thomas, in New Jersey.

Some communities are walker-friendly, Manhattan is one of them. Most places I've experienced in the U.S. aren't. You need a certain size and age of city for that to be possible.

I think the idea of getting into a temp place for 6 - 12 months is good - get to know the community/area, figure out if shopping without a car is possible, that sort of thing.

~~~

As a result of a weirdness at my job, I do know that there are commuter buses that take people to the trains that get them around, in the area of New Jersey Thomas is considering. Most people need cars to get to those buses that get them to the trains. That seems a very special type of Americanism to me.

I can only sigh that you are mostly correct. I've been a walker in a non walking city, though that city (LA) has runners and isn't entirely non-walking. But even in that mostly non walking city, people like me do walk or bicycle. My bro-in-law in LA has a pickup truck but spends most of his transportation hours on a bicycle. He is a high up inspector for LA, was, e.g., the senior inspector for the multi year building of the Getty. He makes that all work, by leaving his truck at work as schedule dictates, in case he has to dart from project to project.

Walkers and public transport enthusiasts are thwarted though, as I am now, by a city planned with no cognizance whatsoever of pedestrians, like albuquerque.

So given Thomas's preference, he needs a bit of room and time to reconnoiter which cities are most pedestrian friendly. With any luck, there may be something online about that already.

I think I may agree with you, ehBeth, about the temp lease. There is such a thing as storage, if Thomas has a lot of worldly goods. lordknows I've just lived through that.

But maybe he can get away with a good first choice, with enough info from online.

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dagmaraka wrote:

Don't know if I would do it permanently (shopping might be a pain in the neck without a car) - but I can see how it could work with a Zipcar for weeends or somesuch. If you pay the annual fee to Zipcar, the hourly rates get real cheap, and you might really end up needed a car only once or twice a week for errands or for a trip.
Then again, parking really is not much of an issue in the smaller towns of Jersey, and having a small car for comfort and fun would make sense... You will be OK if you start out without one, but I foretell that you will get one eventually. Perhaps even real soon.

I really like that Zipcars idea. I've been thinking that if I stay in Toronto post -retirement (and sans dogs) I'll go with something like Zipcars.

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One more question, Thomas: are you looking to rent or to buy? It strikes me that some areas are better for renting, others better for buying... so that may also play into your decision-making. It's gonna be easier to rent in places like Hoboken or Newark or any of the bigger towns, easier to buy in places like Maplewood, or the Oranges.... at least that's how I imagine it in my lay head.

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Ok, one more post, and then I'm done.

It's all very nice to talk about amenities and culture and going to "the city" for entertainment, but, where the rubber hits the road, you have to figure out first if it's feasible to get from point A to point B.

I totally forgot, there's a guy working right next door, who was born and raised in New Jersy. He's here soley to get the house done.

his name?

Nick....Nick from North Jersey.....any questions?

I went over and asked him how feasible it was to live in Jersey without a car.

Here is as close to the letter as I can remember his answer.

"ahh...you could do it if you lived right outside the city, in Hudson County. You can get from there to anyplace. But I wouldn't want to live there without a car."

I then asked him about Iselin in particular....

"Iselin, where's that?" (I told him it was part of incorporated Woodbridge)..."Oh! Woodbridge? pffftt....I guess you could do it, but it would be a royal pain."

I was trying to phrase my questions so as not to prejudice the answers. I asked him if a person could have a satisfying life without a car in New Jersey...

His response "I could'nt. Like I said, if you live in Hudson County, it'd be doable, but it'd get boring."

Nick is well educated, very polite and likes the finer things. I then got off the subject, and asked him about what I mentioned in another post about the "Going for a ride"

He said "Oh, yes....of course. That's how you have the best time. You find a new restaurant, run into someone else...."

I just took a better look at that NJ transit link Thomas, actually, it might be VERY useful to you....gives all possible schedules, and fares.

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I don't know about Zipcars, or only slightly.. that sounds nifty.

Meant to add that I hope Thomas connects with Frank.

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Iselin, New Jersey

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