How bad is traffic (reverse commute from downtown Minneapolis)? (St. Louis Park: 2013, income)

[west336]

Originally Posted by Slig

No offense but for all intents and puroses of this thread who really cares what traffic is like in Honolulu? The post isn't even about general metro area traffic, it is specifically about making commutes that are going opposite to normal rush hour traffic. If anyone has had a different experience please speak up but in my experience traffic is far lighter when going the opposite direction in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

It almost doesn't matter which direction you go anymore. It matters in places like Chicago because there is only ONE direction you can't go, so people go the other way. Here you can go home in any direction from the center. One example is Hwy 100. It backs up a bit in the morning going north from say Edina, but in the evening it's MUCH worse going the SAME direction. Hwy 62 is attrotious going westbound from I-35W in the morning away from the city, and MUCH easier in the afternoon. A lot of times congestion is more closely linked to where bottlenecks are than where downtown is.

[yoyoma02]

Originally Posted by west336

It almost doesn't matter which direction you go anymore. It matters in places like Chicago because there is only ONE direction you can't go, so people go the other way. Here you can go home in any direction from the center. One example is Hwy 100. It backs up a bit in the morning going north from say Edina, but in the evening it's MUCH worse going the SAME direction. Hwy 62 is attrotious going westbound from I-35W in the morning away from the city, and MUCH easier in the afternoon. A lot of times congestion is more closely linked to where bottlenecks are than where downtown is.

Agreed, it doesn't matter what direction the traffic is going - 494, that doesn't head to or from downtown, is backed up for miles in the morning and afternoon.

[billhelm]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

Agreed, it doesn't matter what direction the traffic is going - 494, that doesn't head to or from downtown, is backed up for miles in the morning and afternoon.

A lot depends on where you are on 494. I reverse commute from South Minneapolis to South St Paul and rarely, if ever, encounter heavy traffic on that stretch of 494. Bloomington, though, is a different story.

[Mezter]

Originally Posted by xandrex

Honolulu has a city population of 374,658 people and a metro of 909,863 according to Wikipedia. So it's definitely not larger than the Twin Cities. It should be expected to have better traffic, but if it does not, then that would make it significantly worse (for its own size).

Ummm, i know honolulu has less people, but theres not a good transit system + theres only 1 highway system...And Honolulu has worst traffic than most large cities...including Minneapolis.

[xandrex]

Originally Posted by Mezter

Ummm, i know honolulu has less people, but theres not a good transit system + theres only 1 highway system...And Honolulu has worst traffic than most large cities...including Minneapolis.

Haha yeah, having only one highway would be a major problem. My main point of the post was to say that Minneapolis and the Twin Cities metro are larger than Honolulu and its metro - I was correct yoyoma02 on that.

[yoyoma02]

Originally Posted by xandrex

Haha yeah, having only one highway would be a major problem. My main point of the post was to say that Minneapolis and the Twin Cities metro are larger than Honolulu and its metro - I was correct yoyoma02 on that.

Honolulu was a bad example, because it's not a simliar city like Minneapolis, even though the city population is simliar. Don't forget to factor in commuters and tourists.

My point being, if you take a simliar city, such as Denver or Seattle - traffic is much more controled there than the Twin Cities.

Again, I blame road construction.

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

Honolulu was a bad example, because it's not a simliar city like Minneapolis, even though the city population is simliar. Don't forget to factor in commuters and tourists.

My point being, if you take a simliar city, such as Denver or Seattle - traffic is much more controled there than the Twin Cities.

Again, I blame road construction.

Blaze Orange is Minnesota's State Color

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by west336

It almost doesn't matter which direction you go anymore. It matters in places like Chicago because there is only ONE direction you can't go, so people go the other way. Here you can go home in any direction from the center. One example is Hwy 100. It backs up a bit in the morning going north from say Edina, but in the evening it's MUCH worse going the SAME direction. Hwy 62 is attrotious going westbound from I-35W in the morning away from the city, and MUCH easier in the afternoon. A lot of times congestion is more closely linked to where bottlenecks are than where downtown is.

It depends on the route though. I sometimes take Hwy 55 out of Minneapolis in the morning to eastbound 55/62 and cross the Mendota Bridge and I've never once been backed up by traffic. That goes for the afternoon return commute too. It feels like hardly anybody is going back into Minneapolis from the suburbs in the afternoon, which is awesome for me. I agree that there are parts of 62, 494, 694, 100 and 169 that pretty much suck in ever direction during morning and afternoon rush hour. I used to commute over to the Hopkins/Minnetonka area from Eagan for my commute and there was no way to avoid bottlenecks on 62 and 494...some days just to avoid bumper to bumper traffic I'd go all the way to 26th St in South Minneapolis and cut across to uptown and take Hwy 7, that's how bad it got sometimes. Thankfully I don't commute over there anymore.

[bizkitgto]

Originally Posted by Slig

No offense but for all intents and puroses of this thread who really cares what traffic is like in Honolulu? The post isn't even about general metro area traffic, it is specifically about making commutes that are going opposite to normal rush hour traffic. If anyone has had a different experience please speak up but in my experience traffic is far lighter when going the opposite direction in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Haha yeah, Honolulu has nothing to do with this topic, but it serves as good trivia knowledge, thanks!

[MinnyKid]

Like many people have said, traffic in the Twin Cities is decent in most places, except for during snowstorms and with accidents. However, a city like Honolulu is hard to compare anything with because of tourist traffic. The only tourists in MSP are there for the Mall of America, which is why 494 is so bad, with MOA and the airport right there.

To recap: Decent traffic-some bad spots