Traffic Congestion
The recently released INRIX National Traffic Scorecard placed Seattle 9th in the top 10 most congested cities in the nation. Shocked? Not shocked?
Scores were based on the total hours spent in traffic, worst day of the week for commuting and average speeds from 100 major cities in America, among other criteria.
The top 10 most congested metropolitan areas in the U.S. span all regions
1. Los Angeles, CA (no surprise to fellow Metblogger Mike)
2. New York, NY
3. Chicago, IL
4. Washington D.C.
5. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
6. San Francisco, CA
7. Houston, TX
8. Boston, MA
9. Seattle, WA
10. Atlanta, GA
The details for Seattle include these patterns:
Worst Overall Congestion: Friday, 4-5 PM
Best Time To Drive Monday, 6-7 PM
Worst Bottleneck: HWY 520 Westbound between Bellevue Way and Lake WA BLVD. This stretch is only 0.33 miles but is congested for 29 hours a week with an average speed of 9.4mph. My husband says that this part of his commute used to kill a bit of his soul every time he had to drive it. Luckily, he now takes the bus.
Nationwide, Inrix calculated the following traffic patterns:
• Worst Traffic Day: Friday
• Worst Week Day Commute: Friday PM
• Worst Commuting Hour: Friday 5-6 PM
• Worst Morning Commute: Wednesday AM
• Best Week Day for Traffic: Monday
• Best Week Day Commute: Friday AM
• Best Week Day Commuting Hour: Friday 6-7 AM
• Best Week Day Afternoon: Monday PM
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Only surprising part to me is that Hwy 167 southbound around Hwy 18 is ranked 23 in worst WA bottlenecks. I used to hate that freeway with a passion during rush hour. One of the reasons I moved back to Seattle was to get away from that freeway.
Wow..thats a lot of traffic. Must be rough.
Every single time I have to drive on I-5 I think to myself "and they want to close 99 and do whatever it is they want to do and where is the traffic going to go??" It’s even terrible on I-5 at 11am on a weekday. Hate.
And having driven around SF, I agree that they have some pretty bad traffic as well. But they do have an few amazing transit systems which totally make up for it.
Im totally about getting people to give up the almighty car, but it is true that the city doesnt offer any reasonable alternative to people outside the city proper. Get on it!
we’re worse than atlanta? i don’t think so. traffic there is miserable.