What's it like to live in Walnut Creek
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Anonymous
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We are a family of five - three boys who like to play baseball, soccer, and swim on a team. We are a public school family and DH will work from home and I (DW) will be a SAHM for another year (before my youngest starts Kindergarten). We are progressive, community-oriented and enjoy being outdoors as well as entertaining friends at home. Is Walnut Creek a good place for us us? We like that it is on the BART line because we will go to SF and Berkeley often.
Thanks |
Anonymous
| WC sounds like a good choice for you. It's very suburban but has a decent downtown with a major outdoor shopping area and lots of restaurants. There is the Lescher Center, which has concerts, plays, talks, etc., so there is a little culture. |
Anonymous
| You sound like a perfect fit for Walnut Creek! I don't know how often you will actually take BART but maybe you will? Presumably you know where you will be going and if it will be convenient. |
Anonymous
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Walnut Creek is lovely. Lots of amenities that are good for families: walking & biking trails, several nice parks with playgrounds (including Heather Farm Park which has a huge all access playground that was just built a few years ago), a couple of libraries (including a large one downtown that was renovated fairly recently), a downtown area with plenty of stores & restaurants, community pools that residents can join for a reasonable fee, community rec centers, two BART stations (Walnut Creek Station is near the downtown area &, despite its name, Pleasant Hill Station is also in Walnut Creek, not Pleasant Hill), etc.
Just be careful IRT which schools the house you buy is zoned for. Most of the town is zoned for excellent schools but there is a small section that feeds into Ygnacio Valley High School, which does not have a very good reputation. |
Anonymous
| 30 year Walnut Creek resident here. Your family was made for Walnut Creek. Enjoy! |
Anonymous
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Thanks for the feedback - (OP here) - DH will be traveling to East coast once every 3 weeks. That's why the BART is important. But you're right, as a family, we may end up driving most places because 5 BART tix add up! Thanks for the feedback! Anything more specific I should know about schools?
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Anonymous
| Also Mount Diablo is in your backyard |
Anonymous
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Can also look at San Ramon, Danville, Alamo. (along the 680 corridor south of walnut creek) San Ramon is closer to Oakland Airport. (My husband travels for work regularly and proximity to the airport helps a lot!) All the schools in SRVUSD (Danville, San Ramon, Alamo) are great.
BART to SFO from the East Bay is a pain. It's a long ride - 90 minutes or so. From walnut creek, there's no direct line to Oakland Airport and he'd probably end up taking a taxi anyway. |
Anonymous
True, there is no direct line. 2 connections, but one is a timed transfer (the trains wait for each other) and the other is to the Oakland Airport shuttle train and that’s always under 10 minutes wait. Worst case scenario is still under an hour from Walnut Creek BART to walking in the door of the airport. |
Anonymous
| Haha! I thought this was going to b3 a thread about Little House on the Prairie! |
Anonymous
That was Walnut Grove. |
Anonymous
It's also crazy expensive to take a cab to OAK from Walnut Creek--not sure why you would do that over BART unless you had very specific time constraints (or aren't the one paying!) Depending on time of day, it can also take far longer driving. Walnut Creek is pretty easy to both OAK and SFO by BART, as long as you've accounted for the time involved. |
Anonymous
Uber pool is usually reasonable, though |