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Old 10-05-2013, 01:01 PM
 
7,934 posts, read 8,569,155 times
Reputation: 5889

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ctr88 View Post
http://www.tomtom.com/lib/doc/conges...ual-NAM-mi.pdf

The only places worse according to this list are LA, SF, and Honolulu. I'm surprised Boston and Atlanta are not on this list. San Jose is #5 and DC is #6 (I'm taking out Vancouver and Toronto b/c they are not U.S.)

So it's not just my imagination, Seattle's traffic is truly horrific. Traffic is so bad it's seriously got me thinking of moving even though I love the city. You just can't really freely move around and across the city and go to restaurants, events, shop, hike, ski without really frustrating congestion constantly. It just really affects your peace of mind and enjoyment of life.
The problem with Seattle is that it's both geographically suffocated with large, hard to deal with bodies of water which limit the number of viable routes one can take to get anywhere (part of it's charm but still...), and the fact that too many people here rely on their cars as their only means of transportation, which is not really their fault as people tend to do whatever is easy and convenient.

One of Seattle's major failings as a city IMO is it's lack of a useful public transit system that people actually want to use. Even Portland, a smaller, less important city, has done a better job making it's train system a main attraction that functions like a rapid transit system should (like NYC, Chicago, SF, etc) where the lines all emanate outward from the central business district. I lived in NY for a spell and used to love navigating the subway...how cheap and convenient it was (most days) compared to jumping in the car a driving somewhere. Seattle for whatever reason never felt the need to sell this idea, and now there's hell to pay as the roads have become overstuffed and under maintained. (Ever tried to merge onto 405 North from I-5 south at southcenter? That's the same crappy, broken pavement interchange from like 20 years ago...)
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Old 10-05-2013, 01:55 PM
 
Location: Nashville
3,533 posts, read 5,811,066 times
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Another problem with Seattle now is that people work in the suburbs and commute back to the city to live, which is the opposite of how it use to be. I was amazed that I could zip into Bellevue at 6:00PM from Seattle with no traffic, whereas the way from Bellevue to Seattle was brutal and could take even 2 hours of crawling. It's obvious that many people in Seattle will commute to other places to work that just adds to the already horrible traffic woes of the city.
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Old 10-05-2013, 07:37 PM
 
Location: Kent, WA
30 posts, read 81,379 times
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That's why I'm on buses for the most parts. Cars can be more expensive than a house and with traffic like this you're not spending on things that worth it.
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Old 10-05-2013, 08:01 PM
 
157 posts, read 305,665 times
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What are the hourly congestions like? I lived in SF for 4 years, LA for 11, OC for 3. In LA the traffic is just perpetually bad. But in SF, traffic on the 101 was only bad during rush hour. By 7 pm, the 101 was open and smooth sailing. And the 280 is practically empty. It was the east bay, around Oakland, where it was bad because you had all these highways meeting in one place.
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Old 10-06-2013, 03:40 AM
 
Location: Past: midwest, east coast
603 posts, read 875,193 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Patrizio View Post
What are the hourly congestions like? I lived in SF for 4 years, LA for 11, OC for 3. In LA the traffic is just perpetually bad. But in SF, traffic on the 101 was only bad during rush hour. By 7 pm, the 101 was open and smooth sailing. And the 280 is practically empty. It was the east bay, around Oakland, where it was bad because you had all these highways meeting in one place.
It's mostly a rush hour thing. I can't speak too much for I-5 since I don't drive there often, but I-405 is clogged or extremely slow during rush hour from just before Bellevue all the way Renton. I-90 also has heavy traffic in the morning from around Exit 15 until Bellevue and is pretty bad going in the other direction in the evening rush hour. The I-90 and I-520 bridges are horrendous during rush hour.
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Old 10-07-2013, 11:30 AM
 
Location: Seattle
458 posts, read 955,727 times
Reputation: 287
I need to pick my daughter up from school on the north side of Capitol Hill at 3:00 pm and need to leave my house in Phinney Ridge at 2:15 to make sure I am there on time. What is that, perhaps three or so miles...the 5 is always backed up so I end up bushwacking on side streets to get up to the hill on most days, always regretting when I decide to give the 5 a try. The other day I sat in a 30 minute traffic jam from the 45th street entrance onto the 5 to the very next exit which I could see but couldn't get to. Frustrating for sure but nothing compared to NY Metro or DC, or SF the other cities I have lived in...I have sat in epic traffic in those towns...A couple of years ago I left Manhattan at 2:30 on a Friday to get out to the Hamptons with three kids in the car, one a baby and didn't get to my uncles home until 8:30 that night...I thought I was going to lose my mind! Still makes me shudder!
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