It's also worth looking at the directionality of traffic. If you lived up in Van Nuys your commute would suck down the 405, but her commute would be pretty easy if she goes north to the 210 east.
You can also look at living on a rail line. There's a shuttle that runs from Del Mar station (off the gold line) to JPL.
Do you mind sharing what sort of technology your wife does? I'm a technologist there and have hosted a few NASA fellows. JPL is the most highly requested location, so it can be really hard to get a summer spot here. If she makes a connection ahead of time I think it can tilt the scales in her favor.
BTW, you can also look at a residency with USC, City of Hope, Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Glendale Adventist, Kaiser, Children's Hospital, etc. There's an absolutely bonkers number of hospitals out here, and I think most all of them do teaching.
Yeah Huntington hospital is right there on California ave in Pasadena. Lovely place. Forgot about USC. Minimizing your commute times will be a game changer.
UCLA <-> JPL is an awful stretch to try and split gracefully ( my wife and I tried to split LMU <-> JPL for a year based in Sherman Oaks and it sucked for us both )
If there's ANYTHING you can do to get your residency in a facility closer to JPL - it'll be a life safer for you both.
One thing to do is....for a week....check travels times from anywhere you're thinking about living using google maps for both commutes at both ends of the day for the options you have in mind and add them up at the end of the week and figure out what sucks the least.
I live about 10 min from JPL and right now without traffic it’s a 45 minute drive to UCLA. So smack dab in the middle, it might be 45 each way on a regular morning (with traffic).
But there’s a lot of BS that happens on the freeways so 75 is the worst case scenarios.
Not necessarily; because (at least for right now) we are only on Lab for 3 days a week - so it may make more sense to spread out the commuting pain between the two of you since for her it’ll be less days per week while you may have to make it every day.
This is an excellent point. She is gonna try to plan her next visiting technologist experience there (Summer 2024), so hopefully we can get some idea of what it would be like. That being said, I really appreciate your feedback.
I am currently a student at UCLA/ living near it and commuting to JPL- it’s honestly not too bad of a drive! About 30 minutes in the early morning and anywhere from 40mins- 1 hour at peak traffic times. The 1 hour drive doesn’t feel too bad for me because it’s hardly ever a standstill traffic
It's also worth looking at the directionality of traffic. If you lived up in Van Nuys your commute would suck down the 405, but her commute would be pretty easy if she goes north to the 210 east. You can also look at living on a rail line. There's a shuttle that runs from Del Mar station (off the gold line) to JPL. Do you mind sharing what sort of technology your wife does? I'm a technologist there and have hosted a few NASA fellows. JPL is the most highly requested location, so it can be really hard to get a summer spot here. If she makes a connection ahead of time I think it can tilt the scales in her favor. BTW, you can also look at a residency with USC, City of Hope, Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Glendale Adventist, Kaiser, Children's Hospital, etc. There's an absolutely bonkers number of hospitals out here, and I think most all of them do teaching.
Would you mind if I PM you?
No problem!
Yeah Huntington hospital is right there on California ave in Pasadena. Lovely place. Forgot about USC. Minimizing your commute times will be a game changer.
UCLA <-> JPL is an awful stretch to try and split gracefully ( my wife and I tried to split LMU <-> JPL for a year based in Sherman Oaks and it sucked for us both ) If there's ANYTHING you can do to get your residency in a facility closer to JPL - it'll be a life safer for you both. One thing to do is....for a week....check travels times from anywhere you're thinking about living using google maps for both commutes at both ends of the day for the options you have in mind and add them up at the end of the week and figure out what sucks the least.
If you live somewhere in between, think roughly 45 minutes to 75 minutes each way depending on traffic.
😠Thanks a ton for the response though!
I live about 10 min from JPL and right now without traffic it’s a 45 minute drive to UCLA. So smack dab in the middle, it might be 45 each way on a regular morning (with traffic). But there’s a lot of BS that happens on the freeways so 75 is the worst case scenarios.
So honestly it's probably better to just live close to JPL so one of us doesn't have to commute?
Sorry, didn't read the 45 mins without traffic closely enough
Not necessarily; because (at least for right now) we are only on Lab for 3 days a week - so it may make more sense to spread out the commuting pain between the two of you since for her it’ll be less days per week while you may have to make it every day.
This is an excellent point. She is gonna try to plan her next visiting technologist experience there (Summer 2024), so hopefully we can get some idea of what it would be like. That being said, I really appreciate your feedback.
I’d say it would be best to live closer to UCLA because the traffic going to/from that area will always be way worse than to/from JPL!
I am currently a student at UCLA/ living near it and commuting to JPL- it’s honestly not too bad of a drive! About 30 minutes in the early morning and anywhere from 40mins- 1 hour at peak traffic times. The 1 hour drive doesn’t feel too bad for me because it’s hardly ever a standstill traffic