4 ms·

I don't know what it's like in other big cities (SF or New York), but the traffic in Seattle sucks. Driving anytime between 8-10AM and 5-7PM is a surefire way

by Splines 16y ago

I don't know what it's like in other big cities (SF or New York), but the traffic in Seattle sucks. Driving anytime between 8-10AM and 5-7PM is a surefire way to get annoyed at stop-and-go freeway traffic. I avoid I-405/I-90 just so my commute's transit time can have lower variance. I'm from central Canada, and traffic in Regina and Winnipeg is a breath of fresh air compared to how it is around here (a 30 minute drive is considered exceptionally long). I'm tempted to move back to a smaller city just because of how much time I waste driving around.

potatolicious 16y ago
It's unavoidable - Toronto and Vancouver are much the same. That's also why you live in a city where driving is not a requirement - where you can reasonably live without owning a car, or at the very least get your daily commute done 100% car-free. Then you get the perks of a big city with none of the gas-brake-honk. Seattle pretends to be such a city, but its transit is so ludicrously broken that it's actually a PITA. The buses are so notoriously bad that UW developed a mobile app (OneBusAway) that tracks where the buses actually are, as opposed to where they're supposed to be. It is pathetically typical for a every-15-minute route to have buses delayed by 14 minutes. And don't even get me started on the light rail line, ugh. Or worse, Paul Allen's pet streetcar. FWIW, I've had extensive experience with transit in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, London (Canada), Windsor, and Montreal. None of the above are anywhere close to craptasticness that is King County Metro or Sound Transit.