Worst metro-area traffic

Came across this thread while seaching for another one so I'm a little late to the party, but I still thought I'd chime in since I've lived in a few of the places and visited others.

I've lived in Chicago and southern California. I used to think Chicago and LA were 1a and 1b in terms of traffic. That was until one time my spouse and I were visiting the Getty and then heading to Dodger Stadium for a concert on Saturday night. Mapquest said the trip should take 20 minutes, but we know it never accounts for any traffic. So we allowed 1.5 hours, thinking the trip would take 40 minutes, we'd park and have time to get stuff before the concert. The entire way on I-5, I-10 (I think), 101 and the exit ramp was bumper to bumper, so it took 2 hrs and 15 mintues. And then it took an hour from the entrance of the parking lot to get parked. Fortunately, the same thing happened to everybody else so we didn't miss the show.

The traffic in Chicago is bad. Not really familiar with the morning rush, but the afternoon rush does last from 2 to 7. There is no such thing is a reverse commute there; there's traffic in both directions. What Will said about the local street not providing much of an alternative is true too. One suggestion I'd have as someone who once lived there and now visits is it'd be nice to be able to buy a temporary EZ Toll thing so that you don't have to wait in the HUGE lines for the manual toll lanes.

I was concerned moving to southern California about the notorious southern California traffic. But that's really more an LA area thing than a San Diego thing. In SD, it's just a smaller city populationwise than the big three of NY, LA and Chicago so they actually seem to have commutes with traffic and reverse commutes with little to no traffic.

But, once you get up into Orange County, the traffic's bad.

I've never really driven rush hour in Houston but I have relatives there and they say the traffic's bad.

I haven't driven rush hour in Atlanta either but one thing I'll say about Atlanta is their roads seem to be really laid out confusingly with bad curves, merges and splits and left and right exits.

One driving related question about Boston -- why is it that if you ask someone for directions there they will act like they know even if they don't and give you directions that are wrong? We were visiting relatives there once and got lost. So we asked someone for directions and they gave us directions that were completely wrong. When we finally got back to our relatives and told them that they said that was totally a Boston thing.

 

Because for a 10-year stretch until a few years ago, everything was under construction. Even if you thought you knew the directions, you didn't, since things were changing so frequently. Every time I'd come home to visit, the exit I took to get off the Mass Pike would be a different number, or on a different side of the highway.

 

FTC, San Diego's public transportation (trolley, trains, bus) is pretty good and that definitely helps. L.A. has a few things, but when in L.A., people love their cars WAY too much to use public transportation. Sad, really.

 

Claws,

I took the trolley in SD when I visited 15 years ago and it seemed ok. I haven't really used public transit since we moved here.

My spouse though has used public transit a few times and he said it was REALLY nice. He was really impressed by how clean it was and how the transfers are free (unlike Chicago.) But he joked about how maybe it was really nice because nobody uses it. So I don't know how crowded it was and how much it helps with their being less traffic.

What amazes me is how everything is so set up for cars in SD and LA. What I mean by that is that it's SO easy to park at stuff here.

After spending time in Chicago, we're just not used to being able to go downtown and to trendy neighborhoods and have it be REALLY relatively easy to park on the street or to find a cheap lot. We've gone to Padres game and parked for FREE on the street, and, no, the space wasn't 5 miles away from the park. Try that at Wrigley! A few weekends ago we were in Hollywood and the parking at a restaurant was free (but we tipped the valet.)

I'm not a traffic engineer and I like to drive to everything (I know it's bad.) I know personally though that if it was $25 to park downtown for an evening I'd be more inclined to use public transit.

 

Where's the thread for worst rural-area traffic? I was out in the boonies today for an interview and was a half-hour late because I got stuck behind every fricking school bus, log truck and semi that you could imaginably stick on a two-lane road. Oh, and one tractor.

 

You must have been in my hometown, then. Honk, pass 'em and don't look back.

 

Lancaster County. Surely the Amish buggies count for something.

 

2 points?

 

2.5 points.

So I drove through NYC tonight for the first time without hitting a small bit of traffic. Unbelievable. The Cross-Bronx normally is crowded at almost anytime of the day, but tonight I went from the Bronx/Westchester border to the GWB in 10 minutes, flat. Of course, I drove through at 1:30 a.m., otherwise it would've been 10 hours. [/Cross-Bronx hater]

 

At a previous job, I used to get stuck behind combines being transported on the highway.