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Drive south from Green Lake every day? Your commute is one of America's worst.

What do you think? (7 Comments) January 19, 2010 at 5:48PM

Check out this little factoid making its way around Twitter right now:

The southbound stretch of I-5 at 45th Street (Exit 169) is, according to the number crunchers at The Daily Beast, America’s 7th worst commute.

#7, I-5, Seattle

Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 256
Worst bottleneck: Southbound, 45th St/Exit 169
Length of worst bottleneck: 1.46 mi
Weekly hours of congestion on worst bottleneck: 34
Speed of worst bottleneck when congested: 21.3 mph

The expert opinion: “We have one major problem in downtown Seattle, and that is physical restraints,” says Paul Tosch, traffic reporter for KOMO 1000. “We only have so much room to put more freeway through downtown Seattle because we have water to one side and all the downtown buildings to the other. And I mean we don’t have room for one more lane.”

[The Daily Beast]
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What do you think? (7 Comments)
  • BenB

    I commute to an office down by Olive and I-5 – and have found the surface streets just about as quick and much more enjoyable. Mostly, they are more predictable.

  • crankymate

    Does no one put two and two together here? It's all the people jockeying across from 50th and 45th trying to get to 520 that screws up the traffic here. Either move the 520 entrance to the left lane, or prevent people from getting across to 520 from these entries. I'm sure we have no real qualified traffic management people in Seattle.

  • jacobstruiksma

    we need trains and express busses with there own lane on I-5 and city streets such as 45th street should have bus lane on it

  • jacobstruiksma

    we need trains and express busses with there own lane on I-5 and city streets such as 45th street should have bus lane on it