Given the Seattle Time’s and other media’s doomsday warnings about the nine-day closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, I expected this morning’s commute to and from West Seattle to be akin to driving drunk without hands (gridlock, chaos, mass commuter suicides, etc). Since that’s a particular hobby of mine, I drove the route. Does eliminating those lanes on Highway 99 bring Seattle to its knees, as we’ve been told, and are drivers incapable of adjusting their patterns?
Here is my experience:
7:40 a.m.—I began in downtown Seattle driving south on 1st Avenue to SODO, equipped with a full tank of gas, 12-ounce coffee, pastry, two newspapers, a sack lunch, toothbrush, first aid kit, map, Bible, and handgun. Traffic: heavy but flowing. Mood: Prepared.
- On the West Seattle Bridge—but where are the cars?
7:45 a.m.—Got lost in SODO. Finished pastry, no time to read newspapers or polish gun. Traffic: Heavy but flowing. Mood: Anxious.
8:10 a.m.—After a detour to Beacon Hill and a few illegal U-Turns, I merged onto the West Seattle bridge with five other cars and a hearse bound for West Seattle. Heavier, eastern-bound traffic moved at a clipped pace.
8:30 a.m.—After celebrating my successful commute to West Seattle by buying another cup of coffee on California Avenue SW, I turned around, expecting to crawl back to Seattle with the thousands of other commuters kneecapped by the Viaduct closure. I then merged onto a deserted West Seattle Bridge headed east, driving approximately five miles over the speed limit. Where is the traffic? Am I too late for carmaggedon? The mass commuter suicides?
- Merging onto I-5.
8:35 a.m.—Merged onto I-5 headed north. Traffic is heavy but moving at 35 mph. We stop once; I pull out my phone to take a picture and am honked at.
8:45 a.m.—I take the Seneca Street exit into downtown. My coffee is still hot, my gun still cold. Mood: Victorious.
Lest you think my trip was an anomaly, the Seattle Times saw exactly the same thing: Traffic was moving easily as early as 6:52 a.m. and their headline was properly incredulous—”Commute from West Seattle: easiest of the year?”
Not to hump a dead horse but remember how, as recently as three months ago, the Seattle Times editorial board was declaring that surface/transit was an unworkable alternative solution to the tunnel because it “amounts to gridlock”? It seems that West Seattle drivers aren’t lemmings running towards a cliff—they’re intelligent people able to instantly change their habits to avoid congestion if given alternatives (i.e. beefed up Metro bus and water taxi services).
But as many people are sure to point out, there’s no use dwelling on the past. I just thank God we’re spending $4.2 billion to make sure this morning’s commute never happens to anyone again.
Nicely surmised by your last sentence. Well played.
People are likely avoiding 99 for a few days, thinking it’s going to be hell. Give it a few weeks. Report back after a ball game.
I don’t know, but my commute from Federal Way to downtown was probably the worst of the year. It was over 1.5 hours. I’m usually in in about an hour.
Also it is not sustainable as about 10% of our office chose not to come in today. Not something that works over the long haul.
@2 You’re a patient person to bother explaining that to her.
Traffic from us will continue to be light, as we have simply abandoned all of our South Seattle friends.
There’s a h-u-g-e problem with your scenario.
A 12 ounce ain’t near enough java.
@5 – For a lot less money, we could just build a wall to keep the South Seattle hordes out.
As a long time West Seattle resident, most of the people that I know are either working from home this week, canceling/postponing business downtown and on the eastside, or taking time off. These solutions are only available to these people in the SHORT TERM. Most employers are being flexible for this one week. This does not mean that employers who haven’t embraced telecommuting or flex-time will suddenly embrace it in the longterm.
This morning happened because the community of West Seattle basically agreed to cut itself off for a week. Many of the 119,000 cars that use the viaduct aren’t clogging the other streets because they are STAYING HOME. I’m sure everyone can agree that not working, is not economically sustainable beyond this week.
Your piece is fatally flawed from the outset. I also have a feeling that you know that. However, I know how The Stranger can’t pass up any opportunity to write a hit-piece on maintaining traffic flow along corridors that have no obvious benefit to Capital Hill (oops, I mean Capitol Hill).
Polishing your gun? Is that a euphemism?
This is called Small Sample Size. It is the very definition.
@8, that’s true. Sorry, Cienna should have specified.
How about commuting from West Seattle to Ballard or upper Aurora, seems a much more appropriate test of the Hwy 99 closure.
@8, your generalizations are lazy an unconvincing. “Most” of the people you know… “most” employers… “many of the 119,000 cars that use the viaduct aren’t clogging the other streets…” Did you take the day off work to count these cars? Did you take a personal head count of employers or West Seattle residents? No? Then I’m not buying it.
If you’ve got an actual argument to make instead of these unfounded generalizations, I’d love to hear it.
@7: I hear Boeing has recent experience with fence-building on southern borders. Perhaps they could be of assistance.
Took me half an hour to get from the CD to downtown, usually takes about 15 minutes.
At 8:30 this morning Boren was backed up down Rainier as far as I could see, Jackson was backed up as well I ended up taking 12th to Pike, it was still a bit heavy.
Cienna is sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but never susceptible to contrary indications.
@15, that’s too bad. Boren is one of the few things that makes driving in Seattle bearable.
So if I understand your article, in the face of potentially crippling gridlock, you decided to add your own vehicle to the mix, just so you could write this pointless chronicle?
I suppose, had there actually been debilitating traffic that dying people stuck in ambulances would have welcomed your witty take on why their trip to the hospital was taking so long…
Meet me this Wednesday, at the 7-11 on harbor ave. I will but buy the coffee, we leave at 7:20am
I left home at 5:45am today and there was traffic that shouldn’t have been there. I think many WS people left much earlier than normal, and you were driving over the bridge at 8:30, when it is normally empty anyway.
Media makes a big deal out of consequences of impending closure.
People see this, get concerned, and make temporary changes such as taking vacation, working from home, buying jet packs.
Due to the warning and people’s actions the consequences do not occur and the media then gets blamed for hype instead of praised to helping to avert the problem.
Somehow this all means that long term everything would be fine without that capacity. Got it.
No effect on my bus commute from north of downtown (and sure, most of the effect is on West Seattle and the South End, but it’s worth pointing out). From what I can tell, other buses did just fine and the delays were manageable, and most car commutes were indistinguishable from any other October Monday. I seriously doubt many people are just working from home or on vacation. The reality is, we don’t need the Viaduct or the tunnel that will replace it.
loved it until the surface-transit comparison. today’s commute <> surface transit.
It would be a better test if you commuted sometime between 7:30 and 8:30 because on a regular day, the West Seattle Bridge isn’t bad at all at 8:30 a.m. And today it seems that more people left early so it was pretty quiet after 8.
I am amazed that this experience has bourn out exactly what one would have expected, people are adaptable and do adapt. The tunnel is a massive mistake. Our fearless city council has refused to look at the studies from all over the world that showed this- for years. This reaffirms my decision to vote against all sitting council members that are running, even when their opponents are complete idiots.
My morning carpool commute was 10 minutes longer than usual. I drive from 83rd & Greenwood to Cedar & Elliot, and then on to 7th & Pike. I took the “usual route” of Aurora to Harrison (due to the Broad street closure) and the entire extra 10 minutes was added between Roy & Harrison as folks realized that both Broad and the viaduct were closed and maniacally tried to get to the Denny exit. 10 extra minutes wasn’t bad. I was expecting much worse. Although, to be honest, I had forgotten about the clousure or I wouldn’t have gotten on 99 at all. I’ll probably try 15th tomorrow to see how that is working out (though it normally takes me about 10 minutes more than 99 so I guess I’m just looking for trouble).
i am working a modified schedule this week, which meant getting to work at 5:45am. traffic was heavy at that time, but flowing. and i am fucking tired.
@13, look at your reporting objectively. You made a small sample study on a single day. You think that’ll dictate how things go for the next eight days, and then eight years while the tunnel is built?
My manager told five West Seattle-living employees (in a group of about 20) that they could work from home every day this week. So there’s another example.
Most of are avoiding the area, so don’t be so surprised, you pro-developer subsidy-swilling anti-car pro-toll Troll.
45th Street and the I-5 onramp was ROUGH this morning around 8 AM.
You seem awfully proud that you were able to arrive at 8:45 a.m. with time for another latte before you have to boot up. I assure you that most downtown workers on a regular day would not be facing a room of smiles if they were an hour late.
Cienna @13,
Please excuse me for not knowing and communicating with every single person in West Seattle. My bad, clearly. Of course, you checked with everyone (I must have been on the crapper when you called) and can report your nonsense because you have done thorough research into the intricacies behind your one experience this morning.
There has been an outrageous amount of outreach to our community regarding ways to handle this week. We have listened and we have adapted (spot on giffy @20). However, the adaptations that one can make for one week doesn’t translate to the long term.
I have talked to my neighbors, friends, people standing in line at the coffee shop and though there may not be a lot of people who will own up to being my friend, I can guarantee that I’ve talked to more West Seattle residents about how they are coping with the shut-down than you have.
Take a look at the comments and you will see my “lazy generalizations” are holding up damn well.
New headline:
Transit expert Cienna Madrid gets lost twice on ‘easiest commute of the year.’
Everyone who works at my office and doesn’t live north of the city is working from home today and possibly all week. So, perhaps the fear campaign is precisely why the traffic isn’t nightmarish? In which case, nicely done, Seattle Times.
I-5 seemed worse than usual on my bus commute up from the Kent-Des Moines P&R, but I may have just been cranky because I had to stand the whole way. Stop-and-go traffic SUCKS when you’re standing up. In the end my bus was maybe 15 minutes later than usual.
With a sample size of one it’s hard to say how much of the problem today was the viaduct being gone and how much was people having forgotten, once again, how to drive in the rain.
I had a horrific commute this morning – 50th street was backed up to Stoneway, and then I5 South wasn’t much better. Took me an extra hour to get to work.
Don’t know if that has anything to do with the closure, but I guess I can speculate just as well as everyone else here. So…yeah.
At my work, a whole bunch of W. Seattle people are staying with friends in the city for most of the closure.
My 25 foot commute from my house to my home office at 9am this morning was under heavy rain but no traffic whatsoever. Therefore we should ban cupcakes.
Did you go to college? Are you not familiar with the idea of the confounding variable? The inherent fault of the case study (essentially, what you have going on in this article) and the power of a higher sample size? This article is ridiculous and tells us absolutely nothing other than the fact that you don’t know how to investigate anything.
Cienna@13 Summed up:
(1) *puts fingers in ears* SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPLALALALALA
(2) Stop letting pesky little things like facts get in the way of my anti-tunnel/anti-viaduct arguments.
…
What’s hilarious is that in one sentence – “they’re intelligent people able to instantly change their habits to avoid congestion if given alternatives – she’s saying that people are able to change. But, in another, she’s saying that people can’t/won’t change their work habits to avoid congestion. Hypocritical much, Cienna?
@13: “Lazy” would describe a “reporter” who made generalizations based on even LESS data; specifically, a single car on a single day — and conveniently (no doubt because no self-respecting Stranger writer would get up before 7 a.m.) avoiding the worst of rush hour.
To add to the anecdotal data here in the comments that you choose to ignore: Three people in my work area (out of 10) live in West Seattle. Two took the week off. The other worked from home today.
To those that think we dont need a viduct tunnel because the traffic isnt that bad right now. Los Angeles had a 10 mile stretch of 405 closed for the entire weekend a few months back, no major traffic back ups on other highways or local streets, that doesnt mean LA can easily do without that 10 mile stretch, it just means people knew in advanced and re-routed, or stocked up and didnt travel for the weekend.
@37 Have you considered a tunnel, just in case?
Oh Cienna. You’re so naive, it’s sickeningly adorable.
@42, A tunnel? Hmmm. Studies, permits, tunneling, tunnel construction, lighting, install two elevators, two moving sidewalks, staffing for the tunnel, costs five times more than the house and the studio combined. Will double the length of my commute and take five times longer, will close down both my house and office for a couple years to build it, yep. I think that’s the correct path to take here.
@42. But you will be dry, and can commute in pajamas and slippers.
According to the sample from the photos in this story, every vehicle on I-5 this morning was either a red truck or a yellow hatchback!
Getting back to reality for a moment and the whole question of the adaptability of commuters and traffic absorption, compare what happened today to what happens when the viaduct or some other road closes without announcement from an accident or weather event. That’s a better indicator of what happens to the true volume of traffic. A well publicized closure impacts the volume of traffic, not just the routes available to the same number of cars/buses.
The question that isn’t addressed by the well publicized short term closure is what would happen if this situation were to become permanent. How much volume can be handled by alternate routes? How many people can adjust their commutes to lessen their impact or exposure? How much of the volume would disappear as a result of negative impacts, like people moving from West Seattle or quitting their downtown jobs?
@45 I do commute in pajamas and slippers already. An umbrella would work almost as well as a tunnel and I’d still keep my nice view while commuting.
West Seattle?
They’re dead to me.
@35 for the North Of The Ship Canal is Where the Job Creators live win.