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Not sure how DC has come in first for traffic congestion, maybe because it has some real bad suburban traffic, but as far as urban central city traffic, boston seems much worse every time I go there.
DC is pretty bad. I dont know much about Boston but it can take over an hour to just get out of the district. The highways are not big enough and rush hour traffic is terrible. I have even gotten stuck on highways on Sundays (no accidents) just traffic.
Not sure what the big deal is. Why are you defending Boston that is has worse traffic? And how can you say out of the blue DC traffic is not as bad if you dont know anything about it.
DC is pretty bad. I dont know much about Boston but it can take over an hour to just get out of the district. The highways are not big enough and rush hour traffic is terrible. I have even gotten stuck on highways on Sundays (no accidents) just traffic.
I think you hit the nail on the head. kcmo said that central urban traffic is worse in Boston. The highways in Boston are more or less a breeze in comparison to DC. When I do drive, I can get out of the city pretty easily at most times. That wasn't the case in DC. However, I found that driving on city streets, particularly downtown, was much easier in Washington DC.
For a suburban commuter, DC is FAR worse. For driving within the downtown area, DC is much better.
Hah... Yeah Boston was terrible, not so much the traffic, but the roads (potholes/road construction/tunnels) and road network (spaghetti). Most confusing mess I have been in and the only big city I've actually gotten totally disoriented in.
DC is pretty bad. I dont know much about Boston but it can take over an hour to just get out of the district. The highways are not big enough and rush hour traffic is terrible. I have even gotten stuck on highways on Sundays (no accidents) just traffic.
Not sure what the big deal is. Why are you defending Boston that is has worse traffic? And how can you say out of the blue DC traffic is not as bad if you dont know anything about it.
???uh check out his location. He's LIVES IN DC. So I'm pretty sure he knows something about what the traffic is like there.
Also defending boston? He's accusing it of having worse traffic, how is that defending it? Are you so obsessed with DC coming in first place that you would want it to comes in first place on a list of cities with the WORST traffic? haha having awful traffic is not something to be proud of. It's something that both of these cities Boston in particular has spent BILLIONS to fix. No one wants bad traffic.
Boston has a much higher population concentration in its core, hence more traffic congestion there. DC has more urban nodes outside of the core (i.e., Rosslyn, Silver Spring, Tyson's, Bethesda, etc.) that really contributes to ridiculous congestion on the periphery of the city. I think that explains the major difference between the two cities, although I've had pretty terrible experiences on the Beltway in DC and I-93 in Boston. I would generally agree, though, that DC's suburban traffic takes the cake.
Interestingly enough, a DC area commute is profiled on BBC News today:
I think you hit the nail on the head. kcmo said that central urban traffic is worse in Boston. The highways in Boston are more or less a breeze in comparison to DC. When I do drive, I can get out of the city pretty easily at most times. That wasn't the case in DC. However, I found that driving on city streets, particularly downtown, was much easier in Washington DC.
For a suburban commuter, DC is FAR worse. For driving within the downtown area, DC is much better.
exactly, that's what I mean.
I'm not saying dc traffic is a walk in the park, trust me, I know all about dc traffic (flyMIA) but Boston's central city traffic is just at a different level.
Now if you are trying to commute from NoVA or Frederick to DC or from PG County to NoVA etc, it's terrible in DC, NY Ave gets bad, the bridges get bad, but Boston doesn't seem to have those kinds of suburban traffic patterns as everything is about the "city" there and not so much the sprawl.
Don't get me wrong, I love DC and traffic is by no means a way to even compare the quality of life of a city because you don't need a car in either city and the metro in DC is great.
But urban Boston traffic makes urban DC traffic seem pretty insignificant. I can't even imagine that town when it snows as I know how snow can add hours and hours to commutes in DC. Then again it may not be as bad for the same reasons. People don't drive as far in Boston and more live in the city I guess.
Metrorail in DC has very good coverage downtown. That relieves much of the traffic congestion. Maybe that's not the case so much in Boston?
This:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duderino
Boston has a higher population concentration in its core, hence more traffic congestion there.
With the added caveat that Boston's streets downtown are little more than cow paths that have been paved over and are now streets. There is no grid, most streets are pretty narrow, and there is a sea of confusing, erratic one "streets." There's really no set traffic pattern whereas DC has a grid, wider streets, and much better traffic flow downtown.
Boston's MBTA subway system is excellent in the center of the city.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo
I can't even imagine that town when it snows as I know how snow can add hours and hours to commutes in DC. Then again it may not be as bad for the same reasons. People don't drive as far in Boston and more live in the city I guess.
To be clear, it's certainly no fun. However, it's not as awful as you may think. When I lived in the DC area (Kensington, MD), the city came to a near stand still for 4-6 inches of snow. It just wasn't prepared for it. Most drivers weren't great at driving in the snow, and many didn't have cars that performed well in the snow. In Boston, it's still miserable. Our drivers are terrible, but they have to get used to driving in snow from an early age. Since the city gets much more snow, it has better snow removal services than DC. The roads are generally treated starting in late November/Early December and there are fleets of city plows and contractors ready to go when we get the forest. I've seen better driving conditions in Boston during a blizzard with 10+ inches of snow coming down than I have seen in DC with 4 inches falling. Boston's just better prepared for snow because it has to be. Now parking is a different story. It's chaos. by January/February, there's nowhere to put any shoveled snow and the sidewalks are a mess. finding a spot on the street sucks anyway, but when it snows it's the worst. And the snowbanks are brownish black by January/February too which is just ugly to look at. Boston's NOT a pretty city in the winter (except during and immediately after the actual snowfall).
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