Report Finds MSP Has 2nd Most Gridlocked Fwy's (LA is 1st) (Bloomington: construction, moving)

[Astron1000]

I agree that Twin Cities interstate traffic is far from being among the worst. Living in DC for a year-and-a-half and driving the Beltway nearly every day was among the worst traffic nightmares I've had. And even that's nothing compared to I-95 from Philly to Boston.

[Globe199]

Originally Posted by wushuliu

As a Los Angeles resident who lived in Mpls (and will be moving back soon), there is no way on earth Mpls comes anywhere close to the living hell that is LA traffic. Los Angeles non-rush hour is worse then Mpls rush hour. Imagine that your Mpls 45min rush hour commute can be that way all day, every day (yes, including sundays). That's LA. I am more than ready for a 45min rush hour commute in MSP, knowing that any other time of day I am not still sharing the road with 15 million people.

I can attest to this. Admittedly I brought it on myself, but a while back I drove from Santa Monica to San Diego on a weeknight. Imagine at least one hour of bumper-to-bumper at 80 mph on the 405. I am not exaggerating. And that only gets you about half the distance.

[Beenhere4ever]

Yeh, till MN gets all 5 million of its people on the local freeways, we are nowhere near. We have less in our whole state than LA has in one part of the state.

[Glenfield]

Traffic is not really all that bad here. Every other major city I can think of is far worse.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Globe199

I can attest to this. Admittedly I brought it on myself, but a while back I drove from Santa Monica to San Diego on a weeknight. Imagine at least one hour of bumper-to-bumper at 80 mph on the 405. I am not exaggerating. And that only gets you about half the distance.

My Dad used to leave his house in Suburban LA at 5:30 AM to get to work, 15 miles away in another suburb, took him 90 minutes on a good day....there is NO WAY we are 2nd to that....

[Texamichiforniasota]

Originally Posted by Ghaukne

494 is bad, 62 is bad. Generally speaking East to West sucks, but North to South is ok during rush hour. There is a flow on some spots, but as offices have all started deploying to suburbs rather than DT, you can get the crap traffic both ways.

Can't speak to your area, but on my commute there are definite bottlenecks along the highway. once you pass these on-ramps things clear up a bit. If you want to really optimize your trip times use less congested non-freeway arteries until you pass these choke points, then enter in the freeway after that. Thats the solution I've found to cut 10-20 mins off my drive each day.

I also would agree that MSP traffic is no where near as bad as SoCal, but given it's tiny population in comparison, Twin Cities traffic is a lot worse that what should be expected. Houston has twice as many people in the metro area as the Twin Cities, but traffic flows much more smoothly, even during rush hour. There are a few bad spots around town, but these are spread much further apart than in the Twin Cities and you can go a much greater distance without hitting one. The traffic engineers built the system on the cheap with little foresight in MN and it shows, with bottleneck after bottleneck. Freeways with only 2 lanes in each direction in the middle of a metro area (here's looking at you 169, 77, and 62), frequent elimination of lanes with forced merges (outbound 394, 494 headed north towards Plymouth, 94 headed towards Rogers), Cloverleaf interchanges between both freeways and larger blvds with about 100 ft to merge and exit together, and until recently, traffic signals at a freeway interchange (494&169) all create bottlenecks with big slowdowns. I'm sure their are equivalents on the East side of the Cities, but I'm not as familiar with that area.

There are metro areas with worse traffic congestion than the Twin Cities, but they all have significantly higher population than MSP. The only area with worse congestion that is the same size or smaller than the Twin Cities that I can think of is Honolulu.

[Beenhere4ever]

What you get on the freeways is a result of how the real estate construction makes its money. Buy up farmland, build up subdivisions, sell them off, but the cost of getting to work isn't taken out of their profit. They have no incentive to think about resulting traffic. In fact, that lies entirely outside any private business. It does make petroleum refiners rich when people get on a highway and creep along to work. The lower the mileage the cars get, the richer the sellers of fuel get.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by Ghaukne

I have been taking highway 62 every day for about 3 years. I have driven in Houston, Dallas, and Seattle as well. None of those has been much worse or better. It doesn't matter if I hit the road at 7 or 830, its still a 10 mile parking lot and takes me 45 minutes for my commute. Seattlites complain about the commute to Redmond being terrible, for me it is the same to Minnetonka.

I take this same commute and concur with your assessment. I drive a stick and rarely leave 2nd gear for at least 5 miles of road in the afternoon commute. I personally cannot defend traffic in the metro during rush hour as I find it plenty bad. I'm strongly considering garaging the car and commuting to work on bike.

[Beenhere4ever]

Hey, I get it that no one likes these rush hour commutes. But, honestly, there's very little that can be done in expanding freeways. HOWEVER, there's a whole world of opportunity in getting fewer cars on them. Frankly, a lot of traffic is just people choosing bad times to drive. And 99 percent of the vehicles have a single passenger. And an indeterminate number of trips could be made more efficiently. More buses and trains could be run. When most of the work in this direction is still undone, I think the discussion is conducted with tunnel vision. We really need to re-engineer our business models to make not putting your car on a freeway more convenient. Most business choices are made as if that's no problem at all. I think going forward, business needs to acknowledge how their success is tied to people's ability to reach places driving alone in a car. Case in point. I can ride two buses to get to Rosedale. That's helpful, but adding transportation from the transit center to every other business location within 5 miles would make Metro Transit's contribution more useful.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Texamichiforniasota

I also would agree that MSP traffic is no where near as bad as SoCal, but given it's tiny population in comparison, Twin Cities traffic is a lot worse that what should be expected. Houston has twice as many people in the metro area as the Twin Cities, but traffic flows much more smoothly, even during rush hour. There are a few bad spots around town, but these are spread much further apart than in the Twin Cities and you can go a much greater distance without hitting one. The traffic engineers built the system on the cheap with little foresight in MN and it shows, with bottleneck after bottleneck. Freeways with only 2 lanes in each direction in the middle of a metro area (here's looking at you 169, 77, and 62), frequent elimination of lanes with forced merges (outbound 394, 494 headed north towards Plymouth, 94 headed towards Rogers), Cloverleaf interchanges between both freeways and larger blvds with about 100 ft to merge and exit together, and until recently, traffic signals at a freeway interchange (494&169) all create bottlenecks with big slowdowns. I'm sure their are equivalents on the East side of the Cities, but I'm not as familiar with that area.

There are metro areas with worse traffic congestion than the Twin Cities, but they all have significantly higher population than MSP. The only area with worse congestion that is the same size or smaller than the Twin Cities that I can think of is Honolulu.

You need to get out more then . St. Louis is a perfect example...traffic there is way worse then in MSP. It backs up for a good 20-40 miles into STL in the morning depending on the time for about 2 hours and same in the afternoon. During the day it's not too bad, but still busier than MSP. Cedar is 3-4 lanes from Apple Valley up to the MOA and just 2 lanes for the 3 miles past MOA. It's very free flowing, even during the worst traffic. You might have to slow down to 55 though....getting on to 62 for about 30 minutes from 7:30-8:00 or so is bad but other than that, it's not a big deal. It adds about 5 minutes to your commute, maybe...

Originally Posted by Cruz Azul Guy

I take this same commute and concur with your assessment. I drive a stick and rarely leave 2nd gear for at least 5 miles of road in the afternoon commute. I personally cannot defend traffic in the metro during rush hour as I find it plenty bad. I'm strongly considering garaging the car and commuting to work on bike.

This is the part you don't get--5 miles of back ups--big deal--go elsewhere and your looking at your entire commute being a 5-10 mph drive. The west side of 62 gets bad in the afternoon--but bad for MSP standards, not for the rest of the country. The east side (east of 35) backs up for a mile--from Cedar to 35--big deal.