Hi,

I currently live downtown TO with friends. Next year me and my wife want to settle a little out of town. We need somewhere that offers reasonably priced housing, safety for kids and good schools but remains commutable for downtown work.

I have looked at Oakville which seems pretty ideal but property there is a little expensive. A friend of mine suggest I look East of TO if I want better value for money property-wise. He particularly mentioned Whitby.

I know Whitby's an hour on the GO train, anybody experience of coping with this trip on a daily basis?

Anybody any thoughts info on East or West would be appreciated.

Thanks

John

PS I have read previous threads on this, was looking for anyone who wanted to add to info from those.

I work on the west side so I chose NW Brampton I’m about one block form the fields, I may move further out in the future but for now its as far from work as I feel comfortable with, and has all the facilities I need come winter.
One thing that was pointed out to me was that the pollution is normally blown east with the prevailing winds so when the air quality is bad downtown we don’t notice it as much out on the NW side.
For access across the city I tend to use Highway 7 as its often quicker than the 401 at peak periods and then just drop down to the required areas..
For big mall shopping we sometime go across town to Yorkdale mall but more often we head to Mississauga.
For downtown its onto the 410 to the 427 and in via lakeshore, I just tend to avoid the QEW out of habit now.
I’d imagine the final choice would depend on your commute as the further out you go from the center of town the Go service becomes less and less frequent and sometimes becomes supplemented with buses

We live in Ajax which is the stop before Whitby on the GO train. I don't mind the commute downtown - I just snooze for 40 minutes!!! Depending on your commuting times you may be able to get the express trains which miss out all the stops after Pickering to downtown, so are much quicker.

Why don't you have a drive around the different areas - Ajax and Whitby have good areas and not so good areas so you need to find one to suit your needs. There has been a lot of building out here in the 2 years that we have been here, homes seem to be reasonably priced.

Our children are in a great school, only a year old and the teachers are very enthusiastic. We live near lots of cycle paths and walking trails, it is great for families and there are frequent events if you like joining in things. My relatives live in Whitby and really like it, one of my colleagues has just moved from Whitby to Ajax but she also liked Whitby.

Everyone likes different things and you will get people arguing that west is best and others that east is best. You just have to look around and decide for yourself, go to lots of open houses and ask questions about the area, we found a wealth of information by doing this.

Another benefit for me living east is that the train times are great for me, I would spend a lot of time hanging around in Union Station if I lived in the west. One of my colleagues living in Burlington has to wait almost an hour for her train home as she just misses the one at 7.45pm and they only run every hour. Check the GO train website for info on the times.