Seattle GBCNers, looking for advice

[stellarose]

I am looking into applying for a job in the Kent, WA area. I had a few intial questions:

1. what is a good area you would suggest to live in around here? Preferably I want to keep my commute time down if I were to get the job and move.

2. what are your summers like? i live in Portland now and you really can't count on summer to start until the 4th, which now is awesome. even though Seattle is close i know temps and rain precip can still vary from here. do you guys get snow at all? we barely ever get snow and it sure doesn't stay long if it does.

3. how far is Kent, Wa from Seattle? DH would have to transfer to UW so I guess I have to look into location of that.

Sorry, these are so random....I'll probably have more later.

[sugarbear]

1. I don't know enough about Kent to suggest neighborhoods. Burien is somewhat close, and might be halfway between Kent and Seattle? I have a few friends who live there and love it, but they have families.

2. Right now it's 80 degrees and beautiful, but last week it was 60 and raining. I'll just say that when it's good here, it's really, really great. And when it's bad... well, it's not any different than Portland. If anything, in the summer, Portland can get hotter.

3. I think it might take an hour in traffic? I never drive that way, so I'm not sure. I'd try to live half way in between Seattle and Kent.

[WOT?*]

If you get the job in Kent there are areas of Kent that are not bad (or at least they weren't when I lived on the southend in my prior Seattle life 20 years ago). I believe the Kent East Hill area was the better of the two "hills" Renton (Highlands near Bellevue) is also a nice area and commutable. If you look at the Renton/Bellevue area and rather between the Kent and UW. Or Burien is an option that I think may be considered, although the airport is there and you'd have to deal with air traffic.

I would probably consider moving closer to UW for his commute. Unless he has an "odd hours" schedule he would be driving with traffic and I5 and 405 both are beastly between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. and again between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. If you do a Capitol Hill/First Hill or Bellevue commute to Kent (my last recommendation would be Bvue since you'd be driving the parking lot that is 405) you would be driving against traffic and would have an easier commute.

We seldom get snow (maybe a couple times in the winter every few years) but when we do it shuts the city down. They don't know snow removal here.

Kent to Seattle is about 20 miles and can take 30-90 minutes depending on traffic. Seattle to Kent isn't nearly as bad as Kent to Seattle during rush hour.

[Nonny]

1. what is a good area you would suggest to live in around here? Preferably I want to keep my commute time down if I were to get the job and move. I really don't know anything about Kent, but you are working in Kent and you H is working at UW it's probably going to be hard to find a place where both of you are happy with your commutes. Commute traffic around our area sucks, especially if you have to be on I5 or 405 during peak traffic times. I don't know about Kent, but around UW is probably going to be nasty regardless of the time of day.

2. what are your summers like? i live in Portland now and you really can't count on summer to start until the 4th, which now is awesome. even though Seattle is close i know temps and rain precip can still vary from here. do you guys get snow at all? we barely ever get snow and it sure doesn't stay long if it does. Summers are nice once they start, which just happened here a few days ago. We do get snow, but not often, and usually it's just a dusting that sticks to the sides but not the roads. When we get a heavy dumping it tends to shut things down because of the hills and limited snowplows.

3. how far is Kent, Wa from Seattle? DH would have to transfer to UW so I guess I have to look into location of that. Probably about 30 miles, depending on where in the Kent area you are. I personally would never ever want to commute from Kent into Seattle, because into Seattle is the "bad" direction as far as heavier traffic. But even if it wasn't the "bad" way a 30 mile commute is pretty far IMO.

[stellarose]

Thanks everyone this was helpful. I'm originally from the Midwest so it cracks me up at the snow closures here, but am very used to it now since Portland is the same way. Summers are great out here once they usually start. I'm bummed the company is in Kent as it sounds like it will be a pain if I would work there and DH at school. We only have one car which has been great in Portland, hope we could keep that going if we moved. I'm spoiled as I was a 3 min walk to my previous job and now I'm a 3 mile drive.
We will see I'm applying tonight.

[puppiesandrainbows]

You really don't want to live in Kent.