‘Worst commute of the summer’ stems from fragile system
Aug 24, 2016, 1:05 PM | Updated: 1:56 pm
Traffic in the Seattle area came to a screeching halt because of a two-car collision on the 520 Bridge. (WSDOT)
(WSDOT)
When two vehicles collided Wednesday on the 520 Bridge it didn’t just cause a distraction, it caused a major morning meltdown and the worst commute of the summer.
That’s according to KIRO Radio’s Chris Sullivan, who said the crash likely caused the “worst overall morning commute of the summer.”
And that isn’t an exaggeration.
The crash, which occurred smack dab in the middle of the morning commute, quickly caused traffic to backup on both sides of the bridge. That’s because the vehicles were blocking the left lane in one direction, and emergency response vehicles blocked the left lane of the other.
The incident happened at the perfect place to send waves of snarled traffic throughout connecting routes. Traffic quickly backed up on I-5 as it led to 520. The commute from the east side of Lake Washington bogged down; the drive from Bellevue to Seattle was upwards of 40 minutes or more.
But that wasn’t all for the summer’s worst commute. Sullivan says traffic was affected on I-90 as people scrambled to find an alternative way to the city. I-405 saw a build up as well.
In fact, the only freeway that didn’t see much in the way of additional traffic was State Route 167, Sullivan says.
Infrastructure of the worst commute
Sullivan says this crash is a perfect example of how fragile the area’s infrastructure is.
“One well-placed accident can grind everything else to a halt,” Sullivan said.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that one crash can make traffic in the Seattle area come to a screeching halt. Drivers may have had flashbacks to another worst commute with the infamous fish truck fiasco that jammed up the infrastructure in Seattle for hours last year. Recent studies have found that Seattle ranks in the top 10 worst congested cities in the country, with drivers wasting dozens of hours stuck behind the wheel.
Though the area’s physical geography can be at least partially to blame for a single crash ruining a morning commute — with a reliance on bridges to get around — it could be argued that the limited infrastructure just can’t handle the load.
Sullivan says if the crash had occurred just a hundred yards or so farther, none of this would have happened on Wednesday.
