advice please on apt hunting for sept

[http://users.livejournal.com/__the_dude__/]

hi folks,

yes, sorry to say, another housing post. i'm currently in ann arbor MI but will be moving to the somerville/cambridge/medford/maybe even arlington area in sept to start a job in the alewife area of cambridge. i was all set to fly out the weekend of june 8-11 to look for sept housing when i noticed crazy high airfares and low hotel vacancies...and found out it's graduation weekend for MIT and harvard. urgh.

so my question to you locals: should i wait a weekend to avoid the craziness of two big graduations (tufts doesn't graduate that weekend too, does it)? or will i be able to drive around and look for apartments that i've found on craigslist (that's also assuming that landlords/realtors don't shut down for the weekend)? you might be able to tell from my questions that graduation here is a HUGE deal and you don't drive anywhere near the campus unless absolutely necessary (kinda like those GD football games at the big house...but i digress). more importantly, i suppose, is whether june 8-11 is a good time to find housing for sept 1 move-in, or do listings come up later/earlier...?

i read the post that the good apts are found by referrals from friends or, absent that, current tenants moving out, so if any of you happen to know of a 2 BR, 1-cat friendly apt "near" the red line for around $1500/mo, i would really appreciate hearing about it.

thanks in advance davis sq peeps!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/__the_dude__/]

that's great, thanks! i had heard about the bike path but didn't know the specifics. i plan to bike to work at least part of the year and if i could do it avoiding the streets, even better.

i just searched google for more info on it so i could find a map of the bike path, but haven't had luck finding current info or a detailed map. if you know of a site with a detailed map, could you post it? thanks!

[magid.livejournal.com]

You can get a PDF map of the bike path here (http://www.minutemanbikeway.org/Pages/basics.html) (other info there, too).

[fanw.livejournal.com]

The commenter below has the right link for the MinuteMan path, but it doesn't include the segment from Alewife to Davis or beyond. I actually don't know of an online version of it, but if you're willing to go paper, Rubel Maps does great bike maps for all of Massachusetts including a specific one called the Boston Bike Map (http://www.bikemaps.com/urbmaps.htm). If you do any riding around here, it's the gold standard.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

This isn't quite a map of the bike path, but it will do.

Here's the Cambridge/Somerville bike path mapped on out a Google Map. I ended it where the Minuteman trail begins after Alewife.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=186611

As you can see it crosses a few streets inelegantly. People have different ways of handling the Davis Square and Mass Ave crossings.

[http://users.livejournal.com/__the_dude__/]

sweet - thanks! helps a lot. i must admit i'm very excited to be moving to a place that google maps deems worthy of extreme detail - ann arbor gets the "does not compute" message if you try to zoom in too much...

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=+arlington,+ma&ll=42.409199,-71.143427&spn=0.014671,0.054245&t=h&om=1

If you look along the NE edge of Spy Pond, you can see pretty clearly a stripe of road that doesn't look like any of the other roads. That's the Minuteman bike path, between Alewife and Arlington Center. It breaks at Arlington Center[1], but at that scale you can see where it continues to the west all the way in to Bedford.

[1] or as chenoameg says, it crosses Arlington Center inelegantly. It had more rights when it was a railroad.

[ron_newman]

In fact, you can even go beyond Bedford. The paved path ends there, but two unpaved branches continue on, one to Concord (near Old North Bridge) and the other to the Billerica line.

[yangelina.livejournal.com]

FYI I do live right in Davis and work just near Alewife and LOVE my commute. The worst part is dealing with non-rule-following path users (cyclists/pedestrians alike), but once you get used to it, it isn't so bad. It's nice enough to ride in the winter (they almost always plow within a few hours after it snows) and I've only had to walk my bike 2-3 times in the last two years. Actually, it's almost better in the winter...less users. :)