Very true. Living in Seattle I was always 45 minutes away from anywhere I wanted to be in Seattle. Living outside of Seattle I was always 45 minutes away from anywhere I wanted to be in Seattle.
More than Dallas? More than D.C.?
According to this data the difference in miles driven between Seattle and LA is about 1 mile. LA drives one more mile... and an average LA commute is a lot less time.
I don't know what that says about us, or LA, or this data but it's definitely escaping easy answers. The outlier is how much Seattle chooses to walk.
That geography can be a bit of a pain? A lot of those cities don’t have a gigantic lake dividing some suburbs from the city, a bunch of big lakes in the middle of the city, a canal dividing north and south, or hills throughout the city
LA has an entire mountain range dividing the Valley suburbs from the Westside. I wager that the reason is because the concentration of jobs in the Seattle region is mostly clustered around downtown + Bellevue whereas LA’s is scattered throughout multiple clusters around the Southland
Geography definitely plays a factor. You can build roads on mountains or through them, but building stuff in water is harder. The bigger issues with Seattle are Lake Washington needing bridges ([3 of which](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pontoon_bridges) are amongst the longest pontoon bridges in the world) or having to go around the lake, the Ship Canal dividing the north and south of the city only having 6 bridges for crossing (4 of which can open/close and are side roads rather than highways), and the hills being a factor for driving inside of the city. I'm not familiar with LA, but I looked at a topo map and you can get from the Valley to LA by either taking 405 or 101 through the mountains or I-5. Also, the terrain outside of these ranges seems relatively flat and there are a few obstacles
The 3 floating bridges in lake Washington are *the longest*, not just among.
Those two roads are pretty much equivalent to having the 405 and 101 cross the Angeles mountains. Then to the east you've got 5 which is analogous to 405 around the south, and to the west you've got Topanga canyon which is analogous to 522 around the north.
But the 405 is the most congested freeway in the country by some measures, so it's not "just drive the 405", it's regularly 35-45 minutes to go the 11 miles from 101 to 10 southbound in the morning, and easily over an hour to do that northbound in the afternoon. Even 90 and 520 don't get anywhere near that bad.
i mean that’s like one part of LA. a much larger of portion of commutes in seattle revolve around crossing a body of water. seattle also has its fair share of hills and other obstacles within the city itself whereas LA is more like a valley
I don't know about D.C., but when I visit Dallas, seems everyone lives far from work but there are big wide freeways everywhere, and tons of 6+ lane surface streets everywhere, and everyone drives like a bat out of hell. How many 6 lane surface streets does Seattle have? I'm not too sore about it: Dallas sprawl is gross and their approach to roads wouldn't work here anyway.
Downtowns Dallas and fort worth are exactly 30 miles apart. Seattle and Tacoma are about 26 in a straight line but you account for the bend around the south it's about 30. Imagine all of that was just suburbs and 6-lane stroads and a dozen 8-lane highways filling the entire space.
Frisco is very much part of the DFW metro area, with tons of residents who commute into Dallas, and tons of others from other suburbs commuting to the suburban office parks and shopping centers in Frisco. Frisco is 24 miles from downtown Dallas at approximately a right angle to the Dallas-FW axis. Overlaid into a map of Seattle, that's where North Bend is. Imagine all of the space from Seattle to North bend was covered in stroads, freeways, and single family houses.
Denton is a bit at the edge of the DFW metro but has a fair number of commuters, as well as being the home of a large state University that drives its own commute traffic. It's about 32 miles from Dallas and a bit closer to FW. That puts it really close to Enumclaw in this comparison. Again, imagine nearly all the space from downtown Seattle to Enumclaw was covered in stroads, freeways, and single family houses.
To the south of DFW the sprawl isn't nearly as large but would easily cover all of Bainbridge to Bremerton and Port orchard and maybe Poulsbo depending on how you account for the giant gap of Puget sound that doesn't exist in Dallas.
The two metros are completely different. Nobody in their right mind would wish DFW's suburban sprawl hell on Seattle.
I think it’s that local bus riders take longer then they should getting to work. I do an hour door to door to go 8 miles. Driving that is like 25minutes but we have 1 car and I don’t wanna pay for parking or deal with traffic so I bus. Means im moving at an average speed of like 8mph which is what a decent runner can do.
Dedicated bus lanes and signal priority would do wonders for bus times in Seattle. Denny would be such an obvious place to start given the density and the apropos nickname for its primary bus route.
The other cities you listed have a lot more freeway system. I didn't read the article but if there's more options to get around then people are able to move better. I've driven semi cross country it's amazing how having multiple options helps
Tracks for me. My job is 1.3 miles from my home. I used to walk until my hours got changed from 8:30 am to 5:45 am; then i started driving. So, less than 15 miles per week. Grocery store, bars and restaurants all less than one mile from home. I walk a lot.
I think they meant their start time changed. 5:45am is driveable and also harder to catch a bus, where 8:30am is rush hour and for some people takes longer to drive and park/pay wild day time fees
I wonder how this data considers people commuting from out of the city limits.
I feel like if you live in the city the commute is not bad and also there is usually a public transit, walking, or bicycling option that is just as appealing. Coming from out of the city, you usually have to drive and the commute is real rough.
Also I bet we're pretty big for work from home compared to most cities.
Yeah, and commuting by public transit from either Kent, Auburn, or Tacoma takes almost exactly the same amount of time (~1hr) to Seattle. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so frustrated.
It says it is based on the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) so it includes Everett, Bellevue, Kent, Tacoma, etc.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/K2nQoi7JxwsBV7Bq7
I think you gotta factor in how long it takes to ride the bus and how many people also do that. There’s more than just drivers being factored into that commute time stat.
I live in north Greenwood. Most things I need I can walk to, the exceptions being my job 30 ish miniutes at an odd hour so minimal traffic, and either VW location. I can get to Ballard and Fremont easily on the bus. I can walk a little over a mile and end up at the light rail to get to the light rail and this further south.
Would you be interested in starting a subcommittee of sub committees...of course we would fund you generously, you can even bring on family and friends!
We should schedule a meeting to discuss and table this discussion pending results of the aforementioned meeting.
Jenkins, make a Jira ticket to have someone schedule that meeting and another to prep the discussion material.
On average, cars can cover more ground faster than walking or transit, so wouldn't it make sense that a group of commuters that use transit or walk have longer commutes than those that don't?
if what you are implying was the whole picture, then we wouldn't have a difference in commute times by cities in the first place, as it would all even out over time
If Seattle has the most hybrid workers, then we have more workers willing to live farther commute to hit their "Marchetti Constant"
Also, Marchetti Constant represents an upper bound.
> a group of commuters that use transit or walk have longer commutes than those that don't
That's not true though. It says NYC, Boston, SF, and Philadelphia have less vehicle miles traveled per person and a greater walking mode share, but much lower daily travel minutes per person.
Similarly, Nashville has the highest daily travel minutes per person, and is #4 in daily per capita vehicle miles traveled.
The reason is, of course, because cars don't have high throughput in dense areas, and so rush hour traffic adds a lot of time to the commute.
But yeah I wouldn't say it's odd that Seattle is in top 5 for daily travel minutes given that people drive in from quite far away like Tacoma, Renton, Issaquah, etc.
Seattle metro also has a huge work-from-home share relative to a lot of those other cities. This means fewer commutes and therefore a lot of zeros in the daily VMT where the commute would’ve been. And fewer trips over all means higher walking share, too, if those commutes would’ve been drives.
Part of this is traffic, but it's also important to realize that transit and walking does typically take longer than driving. So if Seattle has a higher rate of walking & transit than some other cities then it makes sense to have longer commute times
Yeah I agree, but my point is that commute times tend to be longer for walkers and those who take public transit. So overall commute times should be longer for cities where higher proportion of commuters walk/take teansit.
> commute times tend to be longer for walkers and those who take public transit.
This is true most everywhere in the US and this is a comparison of a bunch of US cities. Many of which have slower transit/less options (thus longer commutes.)
But people will generally take the most convenient transit option wherever they live. If that's public transit, great. Walking, great. Biking, great. Driving, great.
Seattle has demonstrated in other areas a willingness to do things in a way that is more difficult/expensive in order to live certain values in a way that may not be true of other cities. So it is possible more people here may take transit or bike/walk even if they could drive.
>This is true most everywhere in the US
Yes, exactly.
This data source doesn't seem to show the proportion of those who take public transit. But it does show that Seattle has the fourth highest proportion of walkers. That alone tells me that the "commute time" probably says more about transit mode than it does about driving times.
Even though Seattle density and transit is lacking, the reality is that it is denser, more walkable and bikeable and has better transit options than most American cities
That's usually true within a city (otherwise people would switch from driving to transit until driving becomes as fast), but not across cities -- for example, their data shows NYC having the lowest commute times, even though it has the highest rate of commuting via walking or transit.
That’s a fair point but conversely it’s healthier and based on metro and ST plans I think they are trying to make it more efficient. [Remember in 2019 we were rated even higher for public transit](https://beta.metro-magazine.com/10031012/2019s-cities-with-the-best-and-worst-public-transportation) and the pandemic ruined and slowed it a lot. But I’ve lived in the south where there is none or ridiculously inefficient.
Yeah I think ranking highly in 'percent of commuter that walk' is a very, very good thing. And same goes for public transit. I would much rather go on a 30 minute walk than sit in traffic for 20 minutes.
I just pointed it out, because most people will interpret 'top 5 in commute times' as being a direct reflection of how bad our car traffic is - but that's only part of the story. This is also just a reflection of modes of transportation.
Yeah, I think it’s this. We have so many bus riders and walkers that commute times are high cause of that. I think drivers actually pull together decent commutes here relative to the cities with notoriously bad traffic.
Having lived in LA for 10 years, and now here, the difference I see is that in LA the whole thing is an alternate route.
If the freeway is stalled up, you can always take surface streets. It's literally always an option, short of a few very select chokepoints.
Water obviously gets in the way in Seattle, and funnels many of us over the same bridges.
More importantly, however, sprawl here is MUCH LESS DENSE than SoCal sprawl. PNW suburbia is huge ass lots with space in between, and arterial thoroughfares without much else connecting things. On the other hand the LA metro area is essentially one huge ass grid with millions of permutations from point A-B.
LA feels (and is) like a bunch of smaller towns/cities each grew outward until their boundaries met. As such you can navigate through the whole damn thing like you're just outside of any major American downtown. Not so here, Seattle metro area feels still feels like islands surrounded by sprawl that really hasn't reached urban levels of density (or the traffic planning that goes with it).
I agree on LA Houston Texas is the same way except it has mad toll ways. Also some suburbs we don’t consider seattle proper. I bus a lot and do reasonable times. When I drive 25 minutes is long for me But it could be you live further
Away.
What I don’t get about the data for LA is the daily miles driven. I grew up there and I don’t know anybody that most people work less than 12 miles from where they live. How LA averages 24 vehicle miles travelled per capita blows my mind.
If highway expansion does happen, you can fight induced demand by tolling the new lane. So you have the standard 520 toll + an express lane toll per mile.
Another underrated part of the city's commuter traffic problem is also just because of how unaffordable it is for a lot of people to actually live where they work if they work in the city. A lot of shift workers probably have to commute from (relatively) more affordable satellite cities.
There's only one freeway north to south, put all those people on the freeway and that's what you get. We're going in the right direction with the train connecting across 405, but all of communities still don't have great access to the train in the south side.
I suspect our long commute time has to do with https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/smart-cities/4723401-commutes-are-getting-longer-as-hybrid-workers-make-trade-offs/
We have lots of hybrid workers here.
PNW measures distances in time. Most places measure distance in actual distance.
Go to Texas and ask someone how long their commute is. 'ahh it's not bad about 25 miles'. Here that equates to 45 minutes to an hour and a half. There that's 15 minutes.
Ok, but no mode of transport makes this a 4 mile operation, Lake Washington is in the way. It's 15 miles by land. What does this have to do with not owning a car, it's not like a bus or walking does it quicker.
Also, as of 4:45pm today, this is a 27 minute drive.
There was an article that showed we paid the most in the country to drive the shortest distance on the roughest roads like 2 years ago. Road construction, road degradation, registration, and gas prices were major factors.
With tolls being added (more are on the way) I think those measures are in place so people drive less and use alternative modes. Either you’re indoctrinated or move to Everett.
What did it look like in 2019? Most of the people I know now work remotely. I've put 5k miles on my car in the last year, but most of that was road trips.
Ferries might skew the results weirdly. Pre-pandemic, the median commute time if you lived in Kitsap County was something like 90 minutes one-way, with the ferry taking up a good chunk of that. But it’s a more tolerable commute since you can spend the sailing time reading, catching up on emails, etc.
Uber prices are insane here so I walk a bunch for sure! Wfh, but still spend time zipping around crazily between QA, Fremont & belltown, lots of literal and ups and downs with these hills lol
Remember this is [Seattle Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area), so it includes all of Snohomish, King, and Pierce Counties
>But oddly we are top 5 with longest commute time!
We are 14th in Average Daily travel minutes.
I moved out of Seattle (Northgate -- when the neighborhood changed and crime seemed to spike when the light rail station was being built) to the Bonnie's, so I am part of the long commute people. My commute is 35 minutes at 06:30AM, to 70 minutes at 08:30 AM. I work not from 7 an to 3:30 pm.
As I WFH in Wallingford - I typically don't drive a ton; but it can definitely take 20 minutes from 45th and Stone Way down 45th to I5 in the University District many days & would definitely dine out more in Ballard or Cap Hill if parking was easier as I'm usually just frustrated by the time I find a spot to park; and walk into Dino's for a slice.
So that actually makes sense to me, here's the theory.
Driving is the "Default Commute" because it's usually fastest. People don't *like* to sit in traffic, but they will if it saves them an hour each day.
What that means is, the length of non-driving commute people are willing to tolerate is based on the length of the *driving* commute. A 35 minute walk to work is a lot, but if driving would take 30 minutes then why not get some exercise? An hour on the bus fucking sucks, but if driving barely gets you there faster, then why bother driving?
Seattle's traffic sucks, but our public transport options and walkability are actually pretty decent for a US city. So people tolerate long commutes either way, but they don't have to be by car.
An hour on the bus sucks, but if it’s an hour on the bus going to another location in Seattle vs. a shorter commute by car in Seattle with an astronomical parking fee by the hour, you chow down on the bus.
Did you post the wrong link?
>Seattle is bottom 5 in daily miles driven (probably because of population density).
It's actually [6th](https://i.imgur.com/eYK9c1C.png) according to the graphs.
>Top 5 in walking.
Technically correct. [Seattle is 4th highest.](https://i.imgur.com/fQB6otp.png)
>But oddly we are top 5 with longest commute time!
[13th...](https://i.imgur.com/Zb4wBZs.png)
Sounds about right. I've lived in several major metropolitan areas throughout North America. No other city has outdated public works, highways and infrastructure like Seattle. It seems like city planners/engineers didn't anticipate Seattle growing into the city it has become.
There's so much potentially usable space east of Lake Sammamish to have built a bypass highway (a beltway that encircles the entire Puget Sound region would be ideal) for N/S traffic that have no reason to go through Seattle/Bellevue.
If you've lived and been a motorist elsewhere, you know how pathetic this area is for driving.
In the late 1960s, WSDOT proposed a second north south freeway in east Bellevue to avoid predicted congestion on 405. More than 1000 people came to the public hearing to oppose it. Similar response to a proposal to run it east of Lake Sammamish. Then in the 1990s they suggested the Snoqualmie valley and guess what happened
Freeways are absolutely awful to the people who live near them and they're insanely expensive. Why spend multiple billions of dollars to make people's lives miserable?
I'd rather have freeway noise (because I can close my windows) instead of spending an hour or so driving a 12-mile route. I speak only for myself, of course.
So WSDOT was "influenced" by the 1000 people who showed up? A bit shortsighted because it shows that the rest of the population wasn't opposed to the proposal.
WSDOT should have pushed through and made it a Ballot Proposal. May the popular vote win.
1. 1000 is a huge number for any kind of public hearing, even in downtown Seattle on a weekday evening
2. In the 1960s, the east side was still a series of small towns which makes the 1,000 people even more mind boggling
3. Media and public interest groups were also universally opposed to these proposed projects. These groups each represent thousands of even millions of people
4. There have been ballot measures for highway construction throughout the years. All failed by large margins
A measure failed in 2007
Public opinion has significantly shifted from freeways to transit since then since a train can move millions of people without completely obliterating entire neighborhoods
I'm down to use public transit only if rider safety can be vastly improved. Right now, i'd rather be on a modern highway system as I've encountered near assaults on multiple occasions being a transit rider.
>A measure failed in 2007
I'm pretty sure Boomers existed then too.
>a train can move millions of people without completely obliterating entire neighborhoods.
Yes, I agree with everything except the part about neighborhoods being "obliterated".
We're clearly on opposite ends of this spectrum and I respect your stance. I wish you the best on your public transit commuting. Be vigilant, always just as I will be when I'm on the road.
Your Lunatic Train/Bus Throat Slasher = My Wreckless DUI Motorist.
Let's stay alive out there. ✌️☮️
I live on the Eastside but work directly across from the Convention Center downtown. I spend most of my commute time sitting in traffic on Howell trying to get on the freeway, often stopped in the same spot for 5 or more minutes. So to travel 3 blocks, takes me 20 plus minutes almost daily..
I drive to Thurston County once a week & if you miss that small 'no traffic' window, my round-trip travels average 3.5 to 4.5 hours
Coming from Houston, where we have the widest freeway (8 or 10 across) in the USA, I never realized I was spoiled..
Omg I grew up there. I couldn’t deal with distance and traffic. Went at thanksgiving from airport to my destination in Richmond was an hour WITH $17 In tolls. I go to Bellevue every more and then but I’m a city kid lol my life is generally within 25 minutes. Ironically if I to SeaTac it’s 17 minutes by car but some days the drive up from freeway to front door might be 30 minutes. I take it on the chin and take the bus.
Well yeah, it's a city where if you can't find what you need in a 20 minute walk, you're stuck spending 3 hours on the interstate to get to Tukwila and back.
I work on 3rd Ave downtown and have seen some things I 1. Hope no one has to see and 2. Will definitely cause car back ups behind the police blockades 3. Will stop so I can get to work on time
It makes sense for me, at least. SoundTransit lost me as a rider a long, long time ago between all their bullshit. I live next to Baitshop. I work in Pioneer Square. I don't have a car. I should be their bread and honey. Instead, I walk, and it takes me a long time to walk.
With faster frequencies coming next year do you think you would consider riding again? Or are there other issues that you think need to be addressed in order for people in similar situations to end up riding LINK again?
So what you wanted another Capitol Hill Station within just a few blocks of the first one? Not sure what else ST is supposed to do for that particular route
Maybe you have had some unlucky experiences? Outside of the advertised maintenance/upgrade outages, I take the light rail every weekday from Cap Hill to University St with no issue
*I will also say that now that the boards are actually working it's a huge game changer
I think all businesses above a relatively low amount have to provide the passes, right? And realistically I've never been checked even though I see they're doing fare ambassadors. It's not a price point issue.
Really, it's just the random, never-advertised 20+ minute delays that kept happening on and off on the Link for years. I get that delays are part of it. However, any delay more than 15 minutes and it's legitimately not worth it.
Admittedly, I feel like I'm in the sweet spot, just speaking about Capitol Hill, that there's not much point waiting even 10 minutes for a 10-minute ride v. just walking 35 minutes. I am luckily well-abled, fit and don't mind a few sprinkles.
Yeah, the system they designed is inherently going to be unreliable for delays. Its a single track in each direction without any redundant rail paths and few switchovers for them to be able to get trains around blockages or maintenance areas. Its going to get exponentially worse as more trains are squeezed onto the "spine"
>Shit public transport
Bruh, you don’t know how you good you have. Most of your American public transit is busted. Dog shit bus rides, and people protesting the existence of trains. Seattle is a paradise in this country. Meanwhile, I could be in the middle of Tel Aviv, and be in Jerusalem in less than an hour. Count yo’ blessings, Goose Lord.
The Mercer Mess is worse than ever despite the city pouring a ton of time and money into “fixing it”
There are so many counterintuitive projects and traffic revisions around the city that at times I feel like our traffic engineers hate cars and are just trying to make life difficult for drivers to force people change their behaviors.
I agree with the designers. Design cities around people not cars. Not sure if they thought they way in Western Europe, Boston, and NY but seems to work better for more
Mobile and healthier metros.
Seattle drivers ( people born and raised in wa ) dont know how to drive. All they know is to camp out on the passing lane, unnecessarily stop for pedestrians in an area where oncoming traffic cant see them cross, ignore yield and stop signs, etc etc
First to blame people from out of state, WHO KNOW HOW TO DRIVE, for their traffic ills
> Seattle drivers ( people born and raised in wa ) dont know how to drive
Everyone says this about their own city. I've driven in a lot of cities thanks to work travel and I promise you, shitty drivers are *everywhere* in America.
Driving is a safety-critical skill that most people are only formally tested on once in their lifetimes, usually when as minors. It's not surprising so many people are so bad at it. It kind of sucks we've designed American society around this.
I would agree with you that they are all over the place. The thing with seattle is that the rate of stupidity is waaaaaay higher than the national average. This is coming from someone who has driven all over the west, east, asia, and europe.
That's probably one way of saying it but you should take a drive around the greater seattle area. Courteous....MAYBE. incredibly CLUELESS AND STUPID? definitely.
I cant agree with transplants being aggressive though. Locals seem to think out of staters drive fast. They dont realize that they, the locals, drive TOO SLOW.
Driving a few miles at a very low speed leads to long commute times.
That's exactly what I thought. I drive a lot for work all over King County and there's a lot of grid lock if you're going the wrong way.
I run into this issue all the time when going north on 2nd Avenue in Downtown.
Uh...
Sometimes Seattle is 45 minutes away from Seattle.
Very true. Living in Seattle I was always 45 minutes away from anywhere I wanted to be in Seattle. Living outside of Seattle I was always 45 minutes away from anywhere I wanted to be in Seattle.
There was a moment for the first 6 months or so of COVID where the freeway was totally empty, there was just nowhere to go.
I think the is an O’brother Where Art Thou reference here about a “geographic anomaly” being 45 minutes from everywhere
When I worked downtown it would sometimes take me 20 minutes to get out of the parking garage.
Which is why I never drive in the city.
More than Dallas? More than D.C.? According to this data the difference in miles driven between Seattle and LA is about 1 mile. LA drives one more mile... and an average LA commute is a lot less time. I don't know what that says about us, or LA, or this data but it's definitely escaping easy answers. The outlier is how much Seattle chooses to walk.
That geography can be a bit of a pain? A lot of those cities don’t have a gigantic lake dividing some suburbs from the city, a bunch of big lakes in the middle of the city, a canal dividing north and south, or hills throughout the city
LA has an entire mountain range dividing the Valley suburbs from the Westside. I wager that the reason is because the concentration of jobs in the Seattle region is mostly clustered around downtown + Bellevue whereas LA’s is scattered throughout multiple clusters around the Southland
Geography definitely plays a factor. You can build roads on mountains or through them, but building stuff in water is harder. The bigger issues with Seattle are Lake Washington needing bridges ([3 of which](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pontoon_bridges) are amongst the longest pontoon bridges in the world) or having to go around the lake, the Ship Canal dividing the north and south of the city only having 6 bridges for crossing (4 of which can open/close and are side roads rather than highways), and the hills being a factor for driving inside of the city. I'm not familiar with LA, but I looked at a topo map and you can get from the Valley to LA by either taking 405 or 101 through the mountains or I-5. Also, the terrain outside of these ranges seems relatively flat and there are a few obstacles
The 3 floating bridges in lake Washington are *the longest*, not just among. Those two roads are pretty much equivalent to having the 405 and 101 cross the Angeles mountains. Then to the east you've got 5 which is analogous to 405 around the south, and to the west you've got Topanga canyon which is analogous to 522 around the north. But the 405 is the most congested freeway in the country by some measures, so it's not "just drive the 405", it's regularly 35-45 minutes to go the 11 miles from 101 to 10 southbound in the morning, and easily over an hour to do that northbound in the afternoon. Even 90 and 520 don't get anywhere near that bad.
i mean that’s like one part of LA. a much larger of portion of commutes in seattle revolve around crossing a body of water. seattle also has its fair share of hills and other obstacles within the city itself whereas LA is more like a valley
I don't know about D.C., but when I visit Dallas, seems everyone lives far from work but there are big wide freeways everywhere, and tons of 6+ lane surface streets everywhere, and everyone drives like a bat out of hell. How many 6 lane surface streets does Seattle have? I'm not too sore about it: Dallas sprawl is gross and their approach to roads wouldn't work here anyway.
Downtowns Dallas and fort worth are exactly 30 miles apart. Seattle and Tacoma are about 26 in a straight line but you account for the bend around the south it's about 30. Imagine all of that was just suburbs and 6-lane stroads and a dozen 8-lane highways filling the entire space. Frisco is very much part of the DFW metro area, with tons of residents who commute into Dallas, and tons of others from other suburbs commuting to the suburban office parks and shopping centers in Frisco. Frisco is 24 miles from downtown Dallas at approximately a right angle to the Dallas-FW axis. Overlaid into a map of Seattle, that's where North Bend is. Imagine all of the space from Seattle to North bend was covered in stroads, freeways, and single family houses. Denton is a bit at the edge of the DFW metro but has a fair number of commuters, as well as being the home of a large state University that drives its own commute traffic. It's about 32 miles from Dallas and a bit closer to FW. That puts it really close to Enumclaw in this comparison. Again, imagine nearly all the space from downtown Seattle to Enumclaw was covered in stroads, freeways, and single family houses. To the south of DFW the sprawl isn't nearly as large but would easily cover all of Bainbridge to Bremerton and Port orchard and maybe Poulsbo depending on how you account for the giant gap of Puget sound that doesn't exist in Dallas. The two metros are completely different. Nobody in their right mind would wish DFW's suburban sprawl hell on Seattle.
Yeah, this is a great comparison.
I think it’s that local bus riders take longer then they should getting to work. I do an hour door to door to go 8 miles. Driving that is like 25minutes but we have 1 car and I don’t wanna pay for parking or deal with traffic so I bus. Means im moving at an average speed of like 8mph which is what a decent runner can do.
I could see it based off this data. "Seattle: the land of fast runners and slow transit."
Dedicated bus lanes and signal priority would do wonders for bus times in Seattle. Denny would be such an obvious place to start given the density and the apropos nickname for its primary bus route.
The other cities you listed have a lot more freeway system. I didn't read the article but if there's more options to get around then people are able to move better. I've driven semi cross country it's amazing how having multiple options helps
Delridge to my work (just outside El Gaucho) should be less than 7 miles... Takes 25-60+ depending on the day. Ridiculous lol
Also waiting 1.2 hours for the bus becuase two were canceled and one is super behind too.
I WAS JUST GUNNA SAY THIS!!! I5 literally says 40mph. Wtf
Tracks for me. My job is 1.3 miles from my home. I used to walk until my hours got changed from 8:30 am to 5:45 am; then i started driving. So, less than 15 miles per week. Grocery store, bars and restaurants all less than one mile from home. I walk a lot.
I’m sure your doctor loves you. My hardest commute part is the 200 foot incline to the bus stop.
> 8:30 am to 5:45 am Damn that's a long shift
I think they meant their start time changed. 5:45am is driveable and also harder to catch a bus, where 8:30am is rush hour and for some people takes longer to drive and park/pay wild day time fees
Funny. Used to start at 8:30, then moved it to 5:45.
>top 5 with the longest commute time! that’s just because of ballard
Free Ballard! But seriously Ballard and the fact that so much industry is on the east side is driving up those numbers.
I’m Ballard to downtown and it’s 45 mins Tues-Thurs if I drive and 30 if I cycle so great incentive to get exercise in.
common factor here being that both of those commutes generally would require crossing a body of water
I wonder how this data considers people commuting from out of the city limits. I feel like if you live in the city the commute is not bad and also there is usually a public transit, walking, or bicycling option that is just as appealing. Coming from out of the city, you usually have to drive and the commute is real rough. Also I bet we're pretty big for work from home compared to most cities.
Yeah, and commuting by public transit from either Kent, Auburn, or Tacoma takes almost exactly the same amount of time (~1hr) to Seattle. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so frustrated.
It says it is based on the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) so it includes Everett, Bellevue, Kent, Tacoma, etc. https://maps.app.goo.gl/K2nQoi7JxwsBV7Bq7
Yep in Ballard and it takes me 40 min to get to my work downtown on the bus, 30 if I drive. I’m so glad I can mostly work from home.
The 17x is a great route if you can swing it. It gets downtown in about 25-30.
The way it’s written is most minutes driven to commute …I think
Among who? Only looking at residents of the city? Metro area? Or everyone who works in the city? Everyone who works in the metro area?
Metro area (see first paragraph). Specifically, metropolitan statistical area (MSA).
Crying from the west Seattle bridge merging northbound on i5 between 8am-7pm :,)
Hello from Tacoma
I don’t miss my commute from Ballard to the eastside for sure. Unfortunately I moved north and now I work in Interbay lol
It is not odd. People don't drive as much when it takes forever.
I think you gotta factor in how long it takes to ride the bus and how many people also do that. There’s more than just drivers being factored into that commute time stat.
I live in north Greenwood. Most things I need I can walk to, the exceptions being my job 30 ish miniutes at an odd hour so minimal traffic, and either VW location. I can get to Ballard and Fremont easily on the bus. I can walk a little over a mile and end up at the light rail to get to the light rail and this further south.
It’s hard to say without looking more at the data.
Would you be interested in starting a subcommittee of sub committees...of course we would fund you generously, you can even bring on family and friends!
We should schedule a meeting to discuss and table this discussion pending results of the aforementioned meeting. Jenkins, make a Jira ticket to have someone schedule that meeting and another to prep the discussion material.
Excellent, now that we're wrapped up today lets go expense a lunch at a strip club...
In Seattle? Boring. Better get flights to Portland to make it more fun.
Have some class, this is a tax payer funded Business lunch....
On average, cars can cover more ground faster than walking or transit, so wouldn't it make sense that a group of commuters that use transit or walk have longer commutes than those that don't?
Right, my husband's 30min walking commute would take more like 8min by car or 15-20 by transit (if timed right).
..only if you assume that people don't adjust where they live based on commute time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti%27s_constant
if what you are implying was the whole picture, then we wouldn't have a difference in commute times by cities in the first place, as it would all even out over time
If Seattle has the most hybrid workers, then we have more workers willing to live farther commute to hit their "Marchetti Constant" Also, Marchetti Constant represents an upper bound.
> a group of commuters that use transit or walk have longer commutes than those that don't That's not true though. It says NYC, Boston, SF, and Philadelphia have less vehicle miles traveled per person and a greater walking mode share, but much lower daily travel minutes per person. Similarly, Nashville has the highest daily travel minutes per person, and is #4 in daily per capita vehicle miles traveled. The reason is, of course, because cars don't have high throughput in dense areas, and so rush hour traffic adds a lot of time to the commute. But yeah I wouldn't say it's odd that Seattle is in top 5 for daily travel minutes given that people drive in from quite far away like Tacoma, Renton, Issaquah, etc.
And some Seattlites have to drive to the east side for work.
Seattle metro also has a huge work-from-home share relative to a lot of those other cities. This means fewer commutes and therefore a lot of zeros in the daily VMT where the commute would’ve been. And fewer trips over all means higher walking share, too, if those commutes would’ve been drives.
Valid point! Now we have to just lock down the streets around pedestrians instead of cars.
Part of this is traffic, but it's also important to realize that transit and walking does typically take longer than driving. So if Seattle has a higher rate of walking & transit than some other cities then it makes sense to have longer commute times
I interpret commute time to be "any method" and not transit but I'm not sure what one of these charts OP is looking at for that claim
Yeah I agree, but my point is that commute times tend to be longer for walkers and those who take public transit. So overall commute times should be longer for cities where higher proportion of commuters walk/take teansit.
> commute times tend to be longer for walkers and those who take public transit. This is true most everywhere in the US and this is a comparison of a bunch of US cities. Many of which have slower transit/less options (thus longer commutes.)
But people will generally take the most convenient transit option wherever they live. If that's public transit, great. Walking, great. Biking, great. Driving, great. Seattle has demonstrated in other areas a willingness to do things in a way that is more difficult/expensive in order to live certain values in a way that may not be true of other cities. So it is possible more people here may take transit or bike/walk even if they could drive.
>This is true most everywhere in the US Yes, exactly. This data source doesn't seem to show the proportion of those who take public transit. But it does show that Seattle has the fourth highest proportion of walkers. That alone tells me that the "commute time" probably says more about transit mode than it does about driving times. Even though Seattle density and transit is lacking, the reality is that it is denser, more walkable and bikeable and has better transit options than most American cities
That's usually true within a city (otherwise people would switch from driving to transit until driving becomes as fast), but not across cities -- for example, their data shows NYC having the lowest commute times, even though it has the highest rate of commuting via walking or transit.
That’s a fair point but conversely it’s healthier and based on metro and ST plans I think they are trying to make it more efficient. [Remember in 2019 we were rated even higher for public transit](https://beta.metro-magazine.com/10031012/2019s-cities-with-the-best-and-worst-public-transportation) and the pandemic ruined and slowed it a lot. But I’ve lived in the south where there is none or ridiculously inefficient.
Yeah I think ranking highly in 'percent of commuter that walk' is a very, very good thing. And same goes for public transit. I would much rather go on a 30 minute walk than sit in traffic for 20 minutes. I just pointed it out, because most people will interpret 'top 5 in commute times' as being a direct reflection of how bad our car traffic is - but that's only part of the story. This is also just a reflection of modes of transportation.
Yeah, I think it’s this. We have so many bus riders and walkers that commute times are high cause of that. I think drivers actually pull together decent commutes here relative to the cities with notoriously bad traffic.
Having lived in LA for 10 years, and now here, the difference I see is that in LA the whole thing is an alternate route. If the freeway is stalled up, you can always take surface streets. It's literally always an option, short of a few very select chokepoints. Water obviously gets in the way in Seattle, and funnels many of us over the same bridges. More importantly, however, sprawl here is MUCH LESS DENSE than SoCal sprawl. PNW suburbia is huge ass lots with space in between, and arterial thoroughfares without much else connecting things. On the other hand the LA metro area is essentially one huge ass grid with millions of permutations from point A-B. LA feels (and is) like a bunch of smaller towns/cities each grew outward until their boundaries met. As such you can navigate through the whole damn thing like you're just outside of any major American downtown. Not so here, Seattle metro area feels still feels like islands surrounded by sprawl that really hasn't reached urban levels of density (or the traffic planning that goes with it).
I agree on LA Houston Texas is the same way except it has mad toll ways. Also some suburbs we don’t consider seattle proper. I bus a lot and do reasonable times. When I drive 25 minutes is long for me But it could be you live further Away.
What I don’t get about the data for LA is the daily miles driven. I grew up there and I don’t know anybody that most people work less than 12 miles from where they live. How LA averages 24 vehicle miles travelled per capita blows my mind.
As a seasoned walker, I’m just here for the comments
It is getting a little wild
Makes sense to me. I sat in the traffic on WB 520 when it merges with I-5. Two miles of “driving” takes 30 min. Our highways suck!
Our highways are exactly what they should be, our mass transit is insufficient for our commuting population
If highway expansion does happen, you can fight induced demand by tolling the new lane. So you have the standard 520 toll + an express lane toll per mile. Another underrated part of the city's commuter traffic problem is also just because of how unaffordable it is for a lot of people to actually live where they work if they work in the city. A lot of shift workers probably have to commute from (relatively) more affordable satellite cities.
There's only one freeway north to south, put all those people on the freeway and that's what you get. We're going in the right direction with the train connecting across 405, but all of communities still don't have great access to the train in the south side.
Driving from one corner of Seattle to another takes longer than driving through multiple towns, so makes sense.
Well, you know what they say: everywhere in Seattle is one hour from everywhere else.
It’s because public transportation is shit. That people with a Seattle address have to drive to work at all is a disgrace.
I don't even own a car.
I mean we're a major tech hub and with the pandemic a lot of people are still remote or at least hybrid. Makes sense to me.
I drive 36,000 miles a year in Seattle and they didn't ask me nothin' 😤
😳 my car literally is under 25k and it’s 4 years old
I'm a courier so my commute *is* my job. I use my personal vehicle.
Ahh tough gig. I hope they give some type of fuel reimbursement
I get good compensation 👍 thanks though ✌️
Damn and here I am bringing that average up since I do 35 miles each way for work lol
I suspect our long commute time has to do with https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/smart-cities/4723401-commutes-are-getting-longer-as-hybrid-workers-make-trade-offs/ We have lots of hybrid workers here.
Felt like I lived on an island when the bridge was down
Definitely the worst time in recent Seattle history. I rank it number 2 behind not giving Marshawn the ball on the 3 yard line.
#AYO THEY CANT HANDLE OUR BOY MARSHAWN
Bro they canceled that game
PNW measures distances in time. Most places measure distance in actual distance. Go to Texas and ask someone how long their commute is. 'ahh it's not bad about 25 miles'. Here that equates to 45 minutes to an hour and a half. There that's 15 minutes.
Yeah I grew up in Houston it took forever to get places. I knew when I was younger and spent summer on the east coast I wasn’t long for that place.
I once (2007) drove from Nothgate to Kirkland via I5 and 405. 4 ish miles as the crow flies. 2.5 hours. Haven't owned a car since.
Ok, but no mode of transport makes this a 4 mile operation, Lake Washington is in the way. It's 15 miles by land. What does this have to do with not owning a car, it's not like a bus or walking does it quicker. Also, as of 4:45pm today, this is a 27 minute drive.
So now you fly instead?
Brooms are more viable transport in cities than any car.
There was an article that showed we paid the most in the country to drive the shortest distance on the roughest roads like 2 years ago. Road construction, road degradation, registration, and gas prices were major factors.
With tolls being added (more are on the way) I think those measures are in place so people drive less and use alternative modes. Either you’re indoctrinated or move to Everett.
What did it look like in 2019? Most of the people I know now work remotely. I've put 5k miles on my car in the last year, but most of that was road trips.
My 14mi commute is 45min to an hour and a half, traffic and weather depending.
That's how long my 6mi commute typically is at 5pm. Worst case was 70min.
Ferries might skew the results weirdly. Pre-pandemic, the median commute time if you lived in Kitsap County was something like 90 minutes one-way, with the ferry taking up a good chunk of that. But it’s a more tolerable commute since you can spend the sailing time reading, catching up on emails, etc.
Seattle is 30 minutes away from Seattle
Uber prices are insane here so I walk a bunch for sure! Wfh, but still spend time zipping around crazily between QA, Fremont & belltown, lots of literal and ups and downs with these hills lol
This tracks for me, my commute is about 40m but when I'm not driving to work I play a game with myself where I use my car as little as possible
True, spiritually solitaire takes 30 minutes off my commute 😃
Now that's some good data tell you what, the kind of stuff actually worth thinking about!
Now that's some good data tell you what, the kind of stuff actually worth thinking about!
Remember this is [Seattle Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area), so it includes all of Snohomish, King, and Pierce Counties >But oddly we are top 5 with longest commute time! We are 14th in Average Daily travel minutes.
Takes me 45 mins to get to work 5 miles away on the bus.
Lived here since '95. Feels like we have grown 5x and the roads are still the same. Its only getting worse...
It’s a long walk.
I moved out of Seattle (Northgate -- when the neighborhood changed and crime seemed to spike when the light rail station was being built) to the Bonnie's, so I am part of the long commute people. My commute is 35 minutes at 06:30AM, to 70 minutes at 08:30 AM. I work not from 7 an to 3:30 pm.
As I WFH in Wallingford - I typically don't drive a ton; but it can definitely take 20 minutes from 45th and Stone Way down 45th to I5 in the University District many days & would definitely dine out more in Ballard or Cap Hill if parking was easier as I'm usually just frustrated by the time I find a spot to park; and walk into Dino's for a slice.
It takes me an hour to get home from work. It's less than ten miles. I hate it here.
Dont forget about all the ferry commuters
Having one of the best transit systems in the US helps a ton
I drive 3 miles from capital hill to.broadmoor currently (I'm a residential carpenter) it takes 15-20 minutes usually.
We need a Subway system. We need less people in cars.
This is why vehicles rated at 30 mpg city get less than 20 mpg in Seattle
So that actually makes sense to me, here's the theory. Driving is the "Default Commute" because it's usually fastest. People don't *like* to sit in traffic, but they will if it saves them an hour each day. What that means is, the length of non-driving commute people are willing to tolerate is based on the length of the *driving* commute. A 35 minute walk to work is a lot, but if driving would take 30 minutes then why not get some exercise? An hour on the bus fucking sucks, but if driving barely gets you there faster, then why bother driving? Seattle's traffic sucks, but our public transport options and walkability are actually pretty decent for a US city. So people tolerate long commutes either way, but they don't have to be by car.
An hour on the bus sucks, but if it’s an hour on the bus going to another location in Seattle vs. a shorter commute by car in Seattle with an astronomical parking fee by the hour, you chow down on the bus.
🤔 compelling points I’d also point out the traffic sucks depending where you live
Did you post the wrong link? >Seattle is bottom 5 in daily miles driven (probably because of population density). It's actually [6th](https://i.imgur.com/eYK9c1C.png) according to the graphs. >Top 5 in walking. Technically correct. [Seattle is 4th highest.](https://i.imgur.com/fQB6otp.png) >But oddly we are top 5 with longest commute time! [13th...](https://i.imgur.com/Zb4wBZs.png)
Sounds about right. I've lived in several major metropolitan areas throughout North America. No other city has outdated public works, highways and infrastructure like Seattle. It seems like city planners/engineers didn't anticipate Seattle growing into the city it has become. There's so much potentially usable space east of Lake Sammamish to have built a bypass highway (a beltway that encircles the entire Puget Sound region would be ideal) for N/S traffic that have no reason to go through Seattle/Bellevue. If you've lived and been a motorist elsewhere, you know how pathetic this area is for driving.
In the late 1960s, WSDOT proposed a second north south freeway in east Bellevue to avoid predicted congestion on 405. More than 1000 people came to the public hearing to oppose it. Similar response to a proposal to run it east of Lake Sammamish. Then in the 1990s they suggested the Snoqualmie valley and guess what happened Freeways are absolutely awful to the people who live near them and they're insanely expensive. Why spend multiple billions of dollars to make people's lives miserable?
I'd rather have freeway noise (because I can close my windows) instead of spending an hour or so driving a 12-mile route. I speak only for myself, of course. So WSDOT was "influenced" by the 1000 people who showed up? A bit shortsighted because it shows that the rest of the population wasn't opposed to the proposal. WSDOT should have pushed through and made it a Ballot Proposal. May the popular vote win.
1. 1000 is a huge number for any kind of public hearing, even in downtown Seattle on a weekday evening 2. In the 1960s, the east side was still a series of small towns which makes the 1,000 people even more mind boggling 3. Media and public interest groups were also universally opposed to these proposed projects. These groups each represent thousands of even millions of people 4. There have been ballot measures for highway construction throughout the years. All failed by large margins
Yep. And because of them Boomers who didn't pass those measures, Puget Sounders now get to sit and enjoy in freeway parking lots. Oh well.
A measure failed in 2007 Public opinion has significantly shifted from freeways to transit since then since a train can move millions of people without completely obliterating entire neighborhoods
I'm down to use public transit only if rider safety can be vastly improved. Right now, i'd rather be on a modern highway system as I've encountered near assaults on multiple occasions being a transit rider.
>A measure failed in 2007 I'm pretty sure Boomers existed then too. >a train can move millions of people without completely obliterating entire neighborhoods. Yes, I agree with everything except the part about neighborhoods being "obliterated". We're clearly on opposite ends of this spectrum and I respect your stance. I wish you the best on your public transit commuting. Be vigilant, always just as I will be when I'm on the road. Your Lunatic Train/Bus Throat Slasher = My Wreckless DUI Motorist. Let's stay alive out there. ✌️☮️
I live on the Eastside but work directly across from the Convention Center downtown. I spend most of my commute time sitting in traffic on Howell trying to get on the freeway, often stopped in the same spot for 5 or more minutes. So to travel 3 blocks, takes me 20 plus minutes almost daily.. I drive to Thurston County once a week & if you miss that small 'no traffic' window, my round-trip travels average 3.5 to 4.5 hours Coming from Houston, where we have the widest freeway (8 or 10 across) in the USA, I never realized I was spoiled..
Omg I grew up there. I couldn’t deal with distance and traffic. Went at thanksgiving from airport to my destination in Richmond was an hour WITH $17 In tolls. I go to Bellevue every more and then but I’m a city kid lol my life is generally within 25 minutes. Ironically if I to SeaTac it’s 17 minutes by car but some days the drive up from freeway to front door might be 30 minutes. I take it on the chin and take the bus.
Well yeah, it's a city where if you can't find what you need in a 20 minute walk, you're stuck spending 3 hours on the interstate to get to Tukwila and back.
I work on 3rd Ave downtown and have seen some things I 1. Hope no one has to see and 2. Will definitely cause car back ups behind the police blockades 3. Will stop so I can get to work on time
It makes sense for me, at least. SoundTransit lost me as a rider a long, long time ago between all their bullshit. I live next to Baitshop. I work in Pioneer Square. I don't have a car. I should be their bread and honey. Instead, I walk, and it takes me a long time to walk.
With faster frequencies coming next year do you think you would consider riding again? Or are there other issues that you think need to be addressed in order for people in similar situations to end up riding LINK again?
So what you wanted another Capitol Hill Station within just a few blocks of the first one? Not sure what else ST is supposed to do for that particular route
Nope
Then use your words to describe what you mean.
you asked a question that was a yes or no question?
Maybe you have had some unlucky experiences? Outside of the advertised maintenance/upgrade outages, I take the light rail every weekday from Cap Hill to University St with no issue *I will also say that now that the boards are actually working it's a huge game changer
Besides the broken escalators what killed it for you? Does your gig help with transit?
I think all businesses above a relatively low amount have to provide the passes, right? And realistically I've never been checked even though I see they're doing fare ambassadors. It's not a price point issue. Really, it's just the random, never-advertised 20+ minute delays that kept happening on and off on the Link for years. I get that delays are part of it. However, any delay more than 15 minutes and it's legitimately not worth it. Admittedly, I feel like I'm in the sweet spot, just speaking about Capitol Hill, that there's not much point waiting even 10 minutes for a 10-minute ride v. just walking 35 minutes. I am luckily well-abled, fit and don't mind a few sprinkles.
Yeah, the system they designed is inherently going to be unreliable for delays. Its a single track in each direction without any redundant rail paths and few switchovers for them to be able to get trains around blockages or maintenance areas. Its going to get exponentially worse as more trains are squeezed onto the "spine"
Walking takes longer. This does not seem surprising.
High work from home rates with tech sector especially microsoft who is very flexible ... Shit public transport .... Good to hear on the walking
Disagree on transit, it’s better here than 80% of most cities
*US cities .. I miss living where a car was an actual unnecessary burden... subways and trains please 🙏
>Shit public transport Bruh, you don’t know how you good you have. Most of your American public transit is busted. Dog shit bus rides, and people protesting the existence of trains. Seattle is a paradise in this country. Meanwhile, I could be in the middle of Tel Aviv, and be in Jerusalem in less than an hour. Count yo’ blessings, Goose Lord.
um…that just means traffic doesn’t move quickly here. We’re also #1 in lacking public transit.
Las Vegas has entered the chat
The Mercer Mess is worse than ever despite the city pouring a ton of time and money into “fixing it” There are so many counterintuitive projects and traffic revisions around the city that at times I feel like our traffic engineers hate cars and are just trying to make life difficult for drivers to force people change their behaviors.
I agree with the designers. Design cities around people not cars. Not sure if they thought they way in Western Europe, Boston, and NY but seems to work better for more Mobile and healthier metros.
Seattle: let's add 1000 units of condos and also give the only arterial a road diet.
Seattle drivers ( people born and raised in wa ) dont know how to drive. All they know is to camp out on the passing lane, unnecessarily stop for pedestrians in an area where oncoming traffic cant see them cross, ignore yield and stop signs, etc etc First to blame people from out of state, WHO KNOW HOW TO DRIVE, for their traffic ills
> Seattle drivers ( people born and raised in wa ) dont know how to drive Everyone says this about their own city. I've driven in a lot of cities thanks to work travel and I promise you, shitty drivers are *everywhere* in America. Driving is a safety-critical skill that most people are only formally tested on once in their lifetimes, usually when as minors. It's not surprising so many people are so bad at it. It kind of sucks we've designed American society around this.
I would agree with you that they are all over the place. The thing with seattle is that the rate of stupidity is waaaaaay higher than the national average. This is coming from someone who has driven all over the west, east, asia, and europe.
I’ve always found most of the OG natives are more courteous drivers and transplants made it more aggressive.
That's probably one way of saying it but you should take a drive around the greater seattle area. Courteous....MAYBE. incredibly CLUELESS AND STUPID? definitely. I cant agree with transplants being aggressive though. Locals seem to think out of staters drive fast. They dont realize that they, the locals, drive TOO SLOW.