South Bay traffic oddities....can anyone explain? (San Jose, Santa Clara: school, housing)

[rs913]

1) Heavy traffic on some freeways starting at 3pm. Can anyone explain this? Are there that many people getting off work that early or whose shifts end at that time?

2) Lots of traffic every evening on 101/87 from Santa Clara going south towards South San Jose, but almost never in the other direction. Since the Valley is so spread out, shouldn't traffic jams occur both ways rather than just in that one direction all the time?

[nr5667]

Originally Posted by rs913

1) Heavy traffic on some freeways starting at 3pm. Can anyone explain this? Are there that many people getting off work that early or whose shifts end at that time?

2) Lots of traffic every evening on 101/87 from Santa Clara going south towards South San Jose, but almost never in the other direction. Since the Valley is so spread out, shouldn't traffic jams occur both ways rather than just in that one direction all the time?

In terms of where the jobs are, not really all that spread out. South San Jose has a bit, and sure it has the IBM research facility, but North San Jose / Santa Clara / SunnyVale and so forth have more jobs, I believe.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

#1 = not sure which freeways you are referring to. Generally the 3PMers are heading for the far East Bay (and beyond) or places like San Benito County or even further such as Los Banos.

#2 = lots of housing in Almaden, Evergreen, etc and beyond, lots of jobs (or what's left of them) in central SJ, north 1st, the Golden Triangle, etc. A very predictable pattern.

[sonarrat]

There is still very thick traffic in the reverse commute direction, but it just doesn't run into the same choke points as in the commute direction. The big ones are the 101/87 merge and the 101/880 merge, which are both scandalously underpowered for commute-hour traffic.

[Wintermomma]

3 pm could also be end-of-the-school day traffic.

What I can't figure out is how it differs by the day when I'm driving at the same time, give or take 5 minutes, each day!

[nr5667]

Originally Posted by sonarrat

There is still very thick traffic in the reverse commute direction, but it just doesn't run into the same choke points as in the commute direction. The big ones are the 101/87 merge and the 101/880 merge, which are both scandalously underpowered for commute-hour traffic.

Santa Clara County has some of the worst freeway interchanges. I'll never understand the logic of combining the 17/280/Stevens Creek interchanges into one giant mess, oh, and with those silly cross over lanes, sheesh.

[Wintermomma]

I wish they'd add more carpool transitions. The 87 to the 85 is quite nice, but 87 to 280 or 85 to 280? UGH!

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by nr5667

Santa Clara County has some of the worst freeway interchanges. I'll never understand the logic of combining the 17/280/Stevens Creek interchanges into one giant mess, oh, and with those silly cross over lanes, sheesh.

They're fixing that one soon, and they're already working on the dreadful 101/280/680/Tully disaster area. I know it's always going to be a mess though, just so many cars.

[esmith143]

Originally Posted by rs913

2) Lots of traffic every evening on 101/87 from Santa Clara going south towards South San Jose, but almost never in the other direction. Since the Valley is so spread out, shouldn't traffic jams occur both ways rather than just in that one direction all the time?

I was just in SJ last week and it took me about half an hour to drive 5 miles from 87 & Julian St to 101 & Trimble/De La Cruz. This was at 8 AM on a weekday.

[Atsuke]

Sounds reasonable, again as others said school traffic also counts. But also as an aside, I have family and friends who work in the technology/electronics sector and get off at 3-4PMish (but start at 7-8AMish). Usually heavy traffic at this time is in one direction only with my experience.

Originally Posted by esmith143

I was just in SJ last week and it took me about half an hour to drive 5 miles from 87 & Julian St to 101 & Trimble/De La Cruz. This was at 8 AM on a weekday.

At least it's not as bad as it is here in LA. 5 miles took me a whole hour and thirty minutes because of all the cars on surface streets wanting to merge onto the already congested 405. Parkings lots, as I like to call them.