Driving in Denver has become frustrating (Aurora, Broomfield: sales, apartment, buying)

[downtownnola]

I first moved to Denver in 2004. I remember when freeways were generally open outside of rush hour periods, and people put the pedal to the medal when roads were clear.

Over the past few years, it seems that every time I drive into the city (I'm in Parker now), there is always traffic. Today, on a Sunday afternoon, I got stuck in stop-and-go traffic all the way into town. The thing that makes no sense is that many times, I was on I-25 in traffic not moving, only to find that once we past the next exit, everything cleared up and started moving again.

Mix in the timid, slow drivers who leave way too much space (I assume many of these people moved here from small towns), the aggressive drivers who are frustrated by slow, congested traffic flow and the road-ragers who get mad about everything. This becomes total chaos. No wonder our local morning traffic reports are nothing but accidents. I vividly remember when Denver drivers were competent and were able to keep traffic moving at a steady and fast pace. Now, it seems that a lot of people want to panic, hit their brakes and cause traffic for no reason. It makes no sense.

This is my therapy session. Rant over, haha.

[Quietude]

The only comment I can make here is, "Why do you think it's just Denver?"

Moving around a little in the last decade has shown me that lots of things people perceive as being a local degradation of life quality is actually a widespread or national thing.

[bluescreen73]

I drove from Southeast Aurora to Elitch's and back at 10am and didn't experience any traffic whatsoever. I took 25 northbound there and 70 eastbound home.
Even the area from the mousetrap to Peoria was moving at or above the speed limit. YMMV.

[BabyBoomers2]

Well, the population of Denver metro/Front Range has definitely grown since we left Parker in Oct 2007. I use to work for a Senior Healthcare Company in Denver and was very surprised just how many Seniors live in Denver metro, let alone the entire Front Range. Those Seniors, like wife and I, who are early Baby Boomers (me/almost 70 and her/71) don't drive nearly as fast as the young folks of today. We "try" to keep up with traffic, but when traffic is going 15 mph over the speed limit, we simply don't do that.

However, there are those, Seniors and younger, that do drive to slow to be on the freeway...…..and are dangerous. They can be just as dangerous as fast drivers.

But, I think the biggest problem with driving in, and around, Denver metro is the population explosion that has happened there. Then again, there has been a major population explosion here in Jacksonville, FL and, most of the time, the freeway system shows it. Understandably, nobody can live in a major, large city and not have this traffic problem happen. People want the nice/big salaries and those can only be found in bigger cities like Denver and Jacksonville.

[N610DL]

When I commuted to Broomfield from my apartment in Cap Hill, I felt like I was lucky. No traffic outbound and only light / moderate traffic coming back around the I-25 interchange for 10-15 minutes. If there was bad traffic around there, the apps would tell me to get off around either around the Downtown area (big mistake) - or around the Colosseum and take back roads through Five Points to get home.



I'm told the DTC area traffic is horrendous and occurred just past my old exit (6) which the off ramp was newly expanded anyways.



The drivers themselves, some yes were pretty horrendous with speeding and not using turn signals in large pickup trucks and SUVs.



One really odd thing I saw occur is a few times during the summer 2017 - I had pick friends up the from the airport and the on / off ramps around Stapleton were randomly closed off for "cleaning." So you had no way to get on I-70 to the airport and had to take back roads and it was easy to get lost.

[Mike from back east]

Driving in America has become frustrating.

[Good Red Road]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Driving in America has become frustrating.

I can’t help wonder sometimes if it’s not intentional. Nah.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Good Red Road

I can’t help wonder sometimes if it’s not intentional. Nah.

It seems that way, to let things get so dreadful that voters will agree to a tax increase to fix it. I think that's a dreadful way to run a world superpower but that seems to be the trick bag we're in. Any politician who runs on raising taxes usually fails so we have to wait for an emergency of sorts before we can get action.

The Federal gasoline tax was never indexed for inflation and has lost a third of its buying power to inflation since it was last raised in 1993. As a nation we sometimes suck at facing the reality that there is no free lunch and must pay our way for what we want and need. That's how it worked in COLO SPGS, the potholes and crumbling roads got so bad the voters actually approved a temporary hike in the sales tax to fix it. Oh well....

[Kathy884]

From someone who lived in Denver in the late 80s and now lives in midwestern city with a similarly sized metro area, Denver traffic is sooo much worse than it used to be. And each time we visit on vacation it is worse than the previous time, corresponding to population growth I'm sure and tourist growth too (so many more visitors to Rocky Mountain National Park -- but still such a great place and a treasure - the crowds don't keep us away from vacationing here, but we try to do August after some schools are already back in session). Just saying OP as a tourist with maybe a dozen trips spread out over the last 30 years who spends a little time in Denver before heading to the mountians, I hear you. Traffic is worse than it was in 1989 where we live too (St. Louis metro area), but not even close to the changes we see in Denver in that same time period. Our metro area though has just had moderate growth vs. Denver's very high growth, so probably no surprise here. // Seems that places with the best weather and close to great natural amenities have been hit the hardest with the ever growing population. There is constant road work and new infrastructure, but efforts just don't seem to keep up with the increase in motorists - or at least that is what it looks like to us.

[Vision67]

Time for a recession?