Traffic... one more question (Seattle, Bellevue: home, construction, to live)

[sarichter]

I have read countless threads about how bad the traffic is in Seattle. I guess my question is, as non-biased as you can be... how bad really is it? When I ask this, I mean not driving downtown all day but rather driving into and out of the downtown area?

I grew up in NJ so we know what real traffic is like (i.e. 15 miles = 60 minutes minimum during rush hour from suburb to suburb, 40 mile commute from PA to NYC = 3 to 4 hours) compared to places like where I live now. I've experienced a little of the Seattle traffic but it didn't seem that terrible... maybe it was a light day or maybe it's completely relative.

Just curious!

[Ira500]

I-5 can really crawl, and it's not particularly predictable. Weekday mornings it's a big slog from the south.
405 turns into a parking lot going south from Bellevue in the PM. I-90 is brutal going east in the late afternoon.
But there are places you can live in the Seattle area and roads that you can take where traffic isn't that bad.
And it keeps getting worse.
I've been stuck in NJ-NY-DC traffic. Is Seattle's really that bad? No. But it's still an increasingly annoying pain in the butt.

[Adrian71]

As I always say when these questions come up, your perception of how bad traffic is, is relative to your experience. If you're used to New Jersey traffic, you probably won't find Seattle traffic all that burdensome. We moved here from D.C., and although there are bottlenecks and slowdowns at peak times here in Seattle, it's a cakewalk compared to the Capital Beltway. Chicago's traffic at rush hour is far worse than Seattle's, too.

It takes me about 40 minutes to drive the 20 miles from Renton (south suburb) up I-5 to drop my wife off at work in south Seattle. And that includes time waiting at lights on surface streets.

[Hemlock140]

Seriously, the talk of traffic being so bad here is mostly because it has gotten so much worse over the last 20 years. Still, it is not even close to other areas like San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles metro area. For one thing, our backups are only 2-3 lanes in each direction, not 4-6. That's a lot less people to funnel onto the exits.

I normally take transit to work but drove one day last week due to an early dental appointment from Sammamish to the Seattle waterfront at 8am, expecting the worse on I90. I was amazed to make it in 40 minutes with only one small jam at Bellevue near the 405 junction. I could see that 405 was a mess, though. Coming home about 3:30 was just a little worse at 45 minutes.

[mrman78]

Like Adrian71 said, your perception on how bad it is depends on your previous experiences. I find it worse on back roads (because there aren't as many highways), but slightly better on highways compared to where I moved from (Houston). The thing about Seattle is that the core is pretty compact, so the distance traffic is backed up on the highway here is not as bad compared to the distance traffic would be backed up in Houston. Also, highways in Houston can be up to six lanes either side. Here, it's maybe 2-3 lanes either side. The biggest difference I've found here is that they will do construction on many major roads/onramps at the same time on the weekends, which can really snarl traffic. For example, they'll close a section of Highway 99, I-5 onramps at Mercer, the west seattle bridge and the 520 bridge all at once!

[MichaelinWA]

In addition to past experience, it depends on where you work and live. For example, the "rush hour" gridlock in the South Lake Union area can be flat out awful. And it's awful whether or you're from NYC or Mayberry.

[sarichter]

Great information... thanks! I agree, it's relative in most places but since I might have to live a bit further out than planned I just wanted to plan for it!

For what it's worth... Route 80 in NJ is damn near the seventh level of hell. I have no idea how people continue to take that every morning and evening... it's absolutely insane.