New report card finds Seattle-area traffic getting worse
Jun 4, 2013, 2:57 PM | Updated: 3:18 pm
If it seems like you’re spending a lot more time in traffic, new analysis says you’re right.
Seattle-area traffic increased by 16 percent between April 2012 and April 2013, according to a new monthly traffic scorecard report from Kirkland-based traffic information provider INRIX.
The study finds Seattle remains the eighth most congested city in the U.S., and 34th in the world.
INRIX traffic analyst Jamie Holter says our improving employment picture is having a direct impact on the roads.
“If you think about where our economy was exactly a year ago, it’s an entirely different economy now.”
With Amazon, Microsoft and plenty of other companies continuing to hire at a record clip, it’s only going to get more crowded on area roadways, Holter says.
“People are going downtown, they’re going to the Eastside. We’ve seen a lot more congestion on southbound I-5 especially, in the afternoon.”
The report card finds the average Seattle driver spends 33.7 hours in traffic each year. The busiest time of the week is Friday at 5 p.m., with the I-5 southbound slog between Northgate all the way to JBLM the most congested.
Even though things seem bleak, it could be worse. Traffic is far more treacherous in the cities topping the list, including Los Angeles, Honolulu, New York, and Austin.
