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SF, no question. Bigger city. Lack of highways. More pedestrian/bicycle/bus traffic that slows everything down. Tighter streets. Far more crowded. Larger, more concentrated downtown. Only a couple ways in and out of town (sort of similar to Seattle but worse). Outside of SF on the Peninsula or in the East Bay it's even worse. Millions more people trapped on what is essentially 2 N-S highways trying to get to work. Comparing a region of ~8 million people to one that is <4 million people. Do the math.
Having lived in both regions, I'd say the Bay Area is a little worse than the Seattle Metro Area, but it's close and they're both terrible.
Seattle has more choke points due to its geography and worse transportation infrastructure. There are fewer highways and a transit system that - despite the 7th highest commute ridership - currently relies heavily on buses that get caught in traffic (Sidebar: An ambitious grade-separated rail expansion is being developed and built, but even if it hits the anticipated 300K rail boardings in the next 15 years, I'm not sure it would make much of a dent since the region is anticipated to grow so much by then.)
So that explains why Seattle is nearly as bad, despite having a metro area with half the population.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I lived in the Bay area 40 years, and now 22 in the Seattle area. Seattle's traffic is just not nearly as bad. even now that it's gotten much worse then
when we came in 1993. Now if you compare 405 from Renton to about Mill Creek, it's as bad as any Bay Area traffic from 5-7pm. Worse, considering there are so many fewer lanes, and when that "hot lane" is finished, at $10 to use it, that stretch north of Bellevue will only get worse.
Seattle has the worst traffic in the country... Hated living there.
Should've lived near the core! But yeah, the bottlenecks in this city are outrageous. One car accident can cause city-wide gridlock which is ridiculous. Glad I never have to drive!
Two of the worst in the country, but the Bay Area is a bit worse than the Puget Sound. Seattle's system is more fragile though, and has some truly horrendous arterials. Mercer and Denny can literally take 30-45 minutes to go less than a mile on a fairly regular basis.
They both have traffic, but I would say the Bay Area is a bit wors e.
my pic.
I'd be curious to see Seattle at 5pm since it has an earlier rush hour. Overall, highway traffic in Seattle is bad, but the Bay is worse. However, the place where Seattle is as bad or maybe worse than the Bay Area is the arterials. Having lived in both cities I can't think of anything in San Francisco as bad as Mercer Street during rush hour.
Also, what those maps show is that the Bay Area has dense urban development over a much larger area than the Puget Sound. The places where the traffic really seems to be the worst is 880 in the East Bay, 101 on the peninsula, and sections in and right near San Francisco and San Jose.
In Seattle the truly urban areas are basically confined to Seattle and Bellevue. (Tacoma is urban as well but it's 30 minutes south and the area between Seattle and Tacoma is not developed to the same extent that the Peninsula and East bay between SF/Oakland and San Jose are.)
However, if you're trying to get around Seattle, Bellevue, or a few other Eastside communities during busy hours on weekdays or weekends traffic is an absolute nightmare. The commute from Everett to downtown Seattle (about 25 miles apart) takes an average of 74 minutes during the morning peak period. And the vast majority of that delay is caused by traffic between Northgate and downtown Seattle (within the City of Seattle).
Once you get south of Seattle it's not too bad for a while, though and then there's a good amount of traffic in Tacoma and near the JBLM military base (between 3-4:30, when the soldiers flood out, it's essentially standstill.)
But again, Seattle traffic is not spread out nearly to the extent that the Bay Area is, but the areas where it's bad in the Puget Sound are as bad as the worst the bay has to offer in my experience.
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