Nutek

Hotscot

Nutek

I'll keep the beer warm.. err.. cold.. thick?

Hotscot

Cold...dark....

WEBlue

Hmmm, you can see what you think of NH summer tourist traffic. Then multiply that by a lot, and that will be CT traffic.

CT traffic in the I-95 corridor between New Haven (CT) and NYC is much, much worse. And not just in the summer, but all year round....

Bob

Hopefully not to bad around 3am in the morning...but saying that, the last time I bombed through at that hour, there were cops doing speed checks every where.

WEBlue

Definitely agree on both these points!

At 3 am you'll probably be able move along at a good clip, but the traffic--lorries & earlybird commuters, among others--will start getting heavy by 5am. It'll still be moving (fast) but heavily for maybe an hour before bogging right down....

And yes, it's when & where the traffic can get up to some nicely excessive speed that the cops like to lurk.

Hotscot

That's good to know. I am used to LA freeways of course.
And since I won't be commuting I can decide when to drive.

I'm also interested in how practical it is to take the train to NY/Boston?

jmood

As opposed to driving to NY?
If you take a car into NYC it will become a pain in your butt. Off street parking is scarce and garages are very expensive. Taxis are relatively cheap though. So unless you have a NEED for the car, or unless you don't minding paying around $60 or more per day for a garage, I would take public transit.

Hotscot

Yes it's just the idea of jumping on a train to go to Manhattan or Boston, leaving the car behind, is so attractive since the CA system is so poor.
Also looks like I could take the train to Newark for a flight.

rpjs

As far east as New Haven you've got the option of both Amtrak and Metro-North to get into NYC by train. Metro-North is much cheaper, more frequent and pretty reliable but only gets you to Grand Central Terminal so you'd need to schlep over to Penn to connect to trains to EWR or JFK. Amtrak is more comfortable, should be a lot faster, but it can be crowded and very unreliable for timekeeping and to get the best fares you have to book way in advance. Maybe somewhere out in Nassau or Suffolk counties in Long Island might be a good compromise, especially anywhere with a good Long Island Railroad service to Jamaica for easy connections to JFK. Driving on the LIE though would be nightmarish.

Bob

Boston, doable but not that frequent and that great but would save the $40-70 parking unless you find a deal or get in on certain hours.

If you're heading in on the morning, you could probably drive down to Newburyport, MA and take the commuter rail in but parking is probably limited at the stop.

Personally, I'd just drive down to Alewife, $7 all day parking and there's a lot of it and then take the T into downtown. Red line about 15-20 mins. Though at the moment, think they're still doing construction so they bus you in from Alewife to Davis/Porter Square and that's about a half hour.