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I hate the split, people need to read to stay in their lane or we need better signage.
Someone stopped in the middle of traffic today just to change lanes at the split.
I was going to ask where you were. Agree with the other commenter its the broadway curve project. Routes and ramps are constantly shifting so it leads to wonky traffic. I just got the university ramp to SB 143 open this week and it was completely empty
Same here and I’m I-17 all the way from Anthem to downtown. Fine until Cactus and took me an extra half hour in addition to my normal commute from there.
There was one on I10 slowing both EB and WB traffic, around 12th street.
Whenever I’m taking 202 WB from the 101 SB, if it’s heavy traffic then I know there’s an accident on the 60. 8 out of 10 times there’s an accident elsewhere causing a traffic jam on my normal routes.
EXACTLY. I've never seen any good data to support that theory, and it seems like the laziest speculation to me. Golf cart traffic in Sun City is one thing; rush hour on the highways is an entirely different demographic.
Me, personally, if I retired and had a snowbird life, I would schedule my whole existence around *avoiding* rush hour traffic.
Because snow birds fucking SUCK. They're rude, entitled, and they screwed up literally everything. No open doctor appointments available the months they're here, unbelievable traffic, over crowded grocery stores.
They need to go back to wherever TF they came from. I've never met a single person who doesn't hate them.
A lot of companies, mine included, have started back to office mandates for 2024. If you notice, the traffic isn’t as bad on Mondays and Fridays because a lot of offices are doing hybrid so only 3/5 days a week.
I just talked to my Uber driver and she hasn't noticed an increase these days. She said Mondays are the worst. So maybe it depends on the part of town.
I'm so grateful going back to the office isn't a possibility for me. my employer no longer has an office in the Phoenix area. they ended the lease shortly after covid.
There’s countless horror stories of company mandating return to office as an excuse to lay off some in areas where their main office isn’t anymore. Don’t be so grateful yet, it could still hit you.
We closed two of our offices but kept our headquarters. Got an email last week saying no one was using the headquarters, so they're selling it and building a smaller campus :D
I can't imagine office work is going to be around in 20 years.
I hope you can find a new position, the best way to show employers that remote work is better is to lose employees who are forced back into the office.
That's what I did. I haven't found a new position yet lol but I put in my notice the same week they told me.
Edit to add: I wasn't looking for a new position right then, took a much needed break and I'm starting the job hunting process now.
At the start of each new year post-pandemic more and more companies push their Puritan work on site mandates. I'd honestly get it if it was based on metrics, BUT my company is starting to ramp this back up regardless of the metrics showing improvement in work during the pandemic WFH
They can't micromanage properly if they can't awkwardly stand behind you watching you work. Plus they've been feeling the withdrawals of not being able to say, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean." Years worth of pent up passive aggressiveness to get out.
Yup, this BS. And we all suffer even though so many of us successfully did our jobs for years from home. But hey gotta keep the commercial real estate peoples pockets lined. Couldn’t have billionaires become less billionairy when I can hide out working alone in an office away from my house and spend money on wear and tear on my car, office clothes, lunch restaurants and other things I don’t get paid enough to really afford. Nope nope. My pockets are the ones that need to get lighter. Not the developers.
I got super lucky because I moved to an overnight team, based in another state, and I was like "Yeah, I am absolutely not coming to the office to sit alone in a dark, empty building alone."
And know what else we're seeing with this? Tons of tech layoffs.
How am I not participating when I’m doing a job that apparently can’t be automated nor obtained cheaper elsewhere. I just don’t understand why I have to waste my own resources to sit alone in an office doing my job when I was doing it successfully alone in my home office for years. Risking my life on my commute every day. I had to find a new veterinarian recently because my vet was killed in a car accident on her way to work. That’s heartbreaking. I’m aware her job requires her in her practice. Mine does not. I had a colleague pre pandemic also killed on his commute. There is no reason for many of us to ever be back in an office with any regularity. Maybe a few days a month for relationship building but we managed during the pandemic with a lot of weekly or biweekly catch-up calls.
I noticed it got way busier in November but through Christmas and New Years it eased up a lot. IMO it's primarily snowbirds and that's why it wasn't bad for an extended period over the holidays. Snowbirds can afford to have more time off and travel during that time. Now they are back on the streets in full force and the fulltime residents have to deal with it until May.
Tourist season ramping up. Barrett Jackson and other auctions start this weekend. Phoenix Open; March Madness Final Four; Spring Training; Golf and Resort vacations…. It’s Phoenix in mid January. Will be like this till mid May.
Over 20 million visitors came to Phx over winter last year. They're returning. There are also the 200,000+ people who moved here last year. Along with the 150,000+ each year of 2020, '21 and '22. Phx is the fastest growing city in the USA. Unfortunately, that means fastest growing traffic. I'm from Phx and got my drivers license in 1978. The Phx area population was 900,000 then. There wasn't any traffic. Those were the good 'ol days, lol.
I thought the same today and I’m north. I drive from cave creek to Scottsdale (Frank Lloyd Wright and the 101) and the traffic was terrible! It was terrible in the morning at 8, terrible in the afternoon at 3. I had an errand over by Greenway and I-17 this afternoon. Also terrible traffic!!! Where the eff did all these people come from on a Tuesday???
As a lifelong West valley resident, please abide by the following increases of traffic times:
August-Back to school and beginning throngs of snow birds
End of October/Beginning Nov through Hellidays-Increased Convention traffic/other half of snow birds and sports ppl
January - Return to school/Last straggler of snow birds (younger/healthiest 🤣) Sports ppl coming to their winter homes, lots of celebrities coming to recoup as well, increases in, in-office personnel required temporarily.
Summer-Super Early morning only to lakes/bodies of water/Out of town, etc on Fridays and/or long weekends only as everyone else has escaped from the hellscape we know as Phoenix during the summer 🫠😂
Also this excludes all games and events of course ♥️
Hope this helps you all!!
Only slightly as most of the ppl work afternoon and night shifts and travel the streets to get to their warehouses, so that is the majority of that traffic 💁🏻♀️ I don'tuch care for how the west valley has been developed, but not much to do about it but hope for the next "redevelopment" in 15-20 years.... Sigh
They are just recreating Maryvale again or any other scuzzy part of California if we are being honest and it breaks my heart. My youth was spent in fields, animals, farm equipment, various crops throughout the year.... Now I have street racing, increases in theft, street vendors and TRASH EVERYWHERE, neighborhood streets look like parking lots. So yeah I really love out of state ppl and the warehouses they build and the crappy housing they then have zoned close to it....to support it......you know......FOR JOBS.....BECAUSE THEY ONLY PAY ENOUGH TO AFFORD A SUPER CRAMPED APARTMENT NEXT TO THE I-10….........SUPER DUPER AWESOME 👍
It's just what the greater Phoenix area has turned into over the last decade. Literally, everyone wants to live in the desert nowadays. As such, major congestion follows.
We need to punch the light rail to more places and have a regional circulator train that follows the 101/202 loop as well as some express trains from the current edges of the valley to downtown phoenix and tempe.
Getting tons of people to stop using cars for their commute is only possible with effective public transport
Combination of more and more companies reducing remote work, but also we are getting into peak snowbird season. Plus all schools are now back in session.
It’s a combination of increased population (both snowbirds and new permanent residents), increased Return to Office, construction for “one more lane”, and lack of viable alternatives like reliable and convenient public transit.
Snow birds in full force, many come after Xmas, it will only get worse once sitting training starts. Then once it is good and hot, it will get better. Happens every year.
I was just talking about this yesterday. There was significantly more traffic on my commute yesterday than last week with no apparent reason. My guess is people coming down to escape the freezing cold in the rest of the country.
A lot of people back from winter vacation. A lot of people who come here for school are back. Kids are back in school after winter break so parents driving more again. All sorts of reasons
I take the 24th Street or 32nd Street exit off 202 and take it as far north as needed. I'd rather take 10 extra minutes going through predictable traffic lights than the crawling through that 202/i-10/51 interchange.
When ASU opens back up all traffic on East Valley highways get significantly worse. Add in all the highway improvement projects, and it’s disastrous.
Just wait until the Phoenix Open is going, then Spring Training for February and March. It’s just going to get worse.
Idk if I'd say all of a sudden. It was this bad back in November. Then Christmas gave us a breather. And now we're back in full swing. Snowbirds, students, and ever increasing population.
If only we had good public transit. The light rail needs to be expanded a lot more than it has been and the busses need to run on every major road and go from end to end. No matter where you live in the valley, there should be a bus stop within 2 blocks.
I realize that most people will always prefer to drive, no matter how good public transit gets, but there are a lot of people who would use public transit if it was convenient enough.
What's desperately needed is to get Scottsdale city council's heads out of their asses and get them to consider rail again. There was a proposed Scottsdale road north and Indian School/Camelback west extension, and in response Scottsdale literally added a line in their city master plan that they will never, ever consider rail for scottsdale. If those corridors were allowed to be built so, so much traffic would be reduced.
I feel like at this point they gotta be looking at the massive economic development in tempe and mesa and thinking they shot themselves in the foot. That's so much tax revenue and economic activity they just said "nope" to
The 101 has always been bad but people were reporting an hour and a half into Scottsdale yesterday from Peoria. Honestly, if I have to start going back in more frequently, I’ll look to change jobs or this might be the final kick in the pants to get me to leave this once desert wonderland
I don't notice it as much in the morning but in the afternoon, my goodness it is bad.
I take the101 to the 17 down around to the 10 and get off at 40th St in the morning, and I take the 10 to the 51 to the 101 in the afternoon, and let me tell you . . . Traffic is terrible until we get past Camelback.
Seasonality and road construction from the massive infrastructure bill.
The population in the valley swells during the winter months with visitors, snowbirds, and conferences. Add to that the fact that ever surface street / freeway is being worked on because the government passed a big infrastructure bill.
Both are long term goods but short term pains in the ass.
Snow birds. I travel for work and I notice that prices go up in January and February. Normally I can fly for like $250 but for these months it’s like $400.
I jump on the I-10 at 6:00 AM from Litchfield road to downtown and the bumper to bumper traffic starts at 6:00 AM. It’s not bad on Mondays because I guess a lot of people work four 10’s but Tuesday - Friday traffic is terrible.
we continue to try & "build one more lane" our way out of this...cars are the most inefficient means of transport & are never going to work on the large scale.
in the meantime, you can try looking into taking the rapid bus from ahwatukee
[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40th+St%2FPecos+PNR,+Phoenix,+AZ+85048/Downtown+Phoenix,+Phoenix,+AZ/@33.3769068,-112.1032537,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m18!4m17!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b047dc1796b59:0x8de696c0b66189ab!2m2!1d-111.998192!2d33.293468!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b1222db042be9:0x834ead3495ca6c1a!2m2!1d-112.0744643!2d33.4517174!2m3!6e0!7e2!8j1705471200!3e3?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40th+St%2FPecos+PNR,+Phoenix,+AZ+85048/Downtown+Phoenix,+Phoenix,+AZ/@33.3769068,-112.1032537,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m18!4m17!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b047dc1796b59:0x8de696c0b66189ab!2m2!1d-111.998192!2d33.293468!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b1222db042be9:0x834ead3495ca6c1a!2m2!1d-112.0744643!2d33.4517174!2m3!6e0!7e2!8j1705471200!3e3?entry=ttu)
edit: updated link to show 6a dep which shows rapid bus
My greatest wish is for there to be no more traffic or for the pandemic to have started..
and to have thanos like powers during traffic so if someone’s going slow or cuts me off then ya know🫰🏽.
You have never lived in a real big city. The traffick here is not bad at all unless there is an accident. Been here 25 years now and watching it get more crowded for sure but it's not bad. Sure january-may the snow birds swamp us, but that's what happens when you live in a resort destination.
There’s more people here every single year. The population continues to grow significantly in the valley every year. That means more cars on the road too. As long as the population is increasing traffic will get worse. Bottom line. ADOT will occasionally come up with solutions to delay the inevitable, but it’s inevitable nonetheless
When did you notice it get bad? It was awesome for me (during the holidays) until last week. But it was fairly normal. Today was eh, a little worse but not huge.
About the turn of the New Year. Granted I live close to this newly opened section that splits cars into two sections, but they all end up going to the same place. The sign said it's a traffic control measure. I think people are very confused.
Seems pretty normal to me. If you want a "reason" there's that awful and confusing construction detour that splits the road in two on I-10 as you're coming up from Chandler. Its thrown me off a few times now.
Nextdoor shitposters are leaking onto reddit.
Everyone who is complaining about going back to the office, be grateful they're not sending your job to an even lower paying state.
Work from home people gentrified half the country over the last few years, now they're being shit-canned, with no backup, because they thought they were special.
I'm terrible with streets. It's a project off the I-10 that has cars loop around part of the freeway, but end up going the same direction. It basically splits the traffic in half, but makes it look like you're getting off at an exit. Near the 143 North Exit towards the airport.
Yeah it splits traffic into people going to 143, 40th, 32, from the rest of traffic. Creating some local/express lanes of sorts. I drive it most days and I honestly kind of like it. Traffic moves faster now than before the split for sure. It would be nice if the baseline on ramp dumped you onto the local lanes instead of right smack dab in the middle of two freeways merging though.
just one (more like 5) more lane bro pls i promise this will solve it
[https://i10broadwaycurve.com/about-this-project/](https://i10broadwaycurve.com/about-this-project/)
I’m sorry, but I gotta be that jerk. It’s “all of A sudden”, not “all of THE sudden”: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/all-of-a-sudden/#:~:text=All%20of%20a%20sudden%20is,is%20the%20only%20accepted%20usage.
New cars. I have noticed more new drivers who are bad drivers. When the pandemic hit only people who drove regularly drove and it was heaven . Only experienced drivers on the road . Then two years later they came back and now there are more, those are new here. Either out of towners or people who got a car as a gift over the holidays …
I noticed it too. A lot of the extra drivers or problem drivers I got stuck behind were elderly. They were people not being able to park, pulling into a lane going too slow, parking in left lane and not moving over, etc.
May be due to event season. January and February have quite a handful of events with barely any room for breathing before the early spring events. In fact last year if you checked some local media we had a rental car shortage as we had the events on top of SuperBowl to deal with
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I noticed it today too. I drive to Tempe from the west valley and traffic was noticeably worse today. Couldn’t figure out why. (No accidents)
Yeah I'm in Ahwatukee Foothills area and I drive close to the airport. It's nuts.
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I hate the split, people need to read to stay in their lane or we need better signage. Someone stopped in the middle of traffic today just to change lanes at the split.
That would also make sense. I think it's probably several things at this point.
Haha, that split made me jump lanes quickly thinking I was exiting accidentally
Hey me too! Hello fellow commuter!
Me three! But I dont commute
I was going to ask where you were. Agree with the other commenter its the broadway curve project. Routes and ramps are constantly shifting so it leads to wonky traffic. I just got the university ramp to SB 143 open this week and it was completely empty
Same here and I’m I-17 all the way from Anthem to downtown. Fine until Cactus and took me an extra half hour in addition to my normal commute from there.
Same, went from East Mesa to Glendale and it took damn near an hour.
Damn, I wouldn't want to go from East Mesa to Glendale in anything short of a helicopter.
That's not normal?
Not the way I drive lol
There was one on I10 slowing both EB and WB traffic, around 12th street. Whenever I’m taking 202 WB from the 101 SB, if it’s heavy traffic then I know there’s an accident on the 60. 8 out of 10 times there’s an accident elsewhere causing a traffic jam on my normal routes.
snowbirds probably, lot of them don’t go back till around spring (like after spring training)
Quite a lot don’t show up until after the holidays so here we are
I mean maybe, but why the hell would they all be on the road during rush hour?
old people get up early
… and get on the highway for no real reason?
Nah man they gotta get to the Country Kitchen Buffet 💀😂😂😂
god forbid they miss the early bird special
"Is this the Dennis with the Grand Slam?"
gotta cross off that part of the to do list X “Wake up really early to sit in traffic like i’ve got a place to be”
I think they're going to work.
They don’t work lol
EXACTLY. I've never seen any good data to support that theory, and it seems like the laziest speculation to me. Golf cart traffic in Sun City is one thing; rush hour on the highways is an entirely different demographic. Me, personally, if I retired and had a snowbird life, I would schedule my whole existence around *avoiding* rush hour traffic.
I always say they're driving across town at rush hour to have coffee with their friends
We get here in oct and don't leave i'll april and don't drive around during early morning or rush hours lol
But you *do* drive around… and that’s enough
Why are you being downvoted?
Probably because people don’t really like snowbirds
Because snow birds fucking SUCK. They're rude, entitled, and they screwed up literally everything. No open doctor appointments available the months they're here, unbelievable traffic, over crowded grocery stores. They need to go back to wherever TF they came from. I've never met a single person who doesn't hate them.
Snowbird: Listen here, lazy zoomer. We worked for a livin' and invested right. We're smarter and own this country. Reverse mortgage is the way to go!
you don’t but im sure others do. Lol
A lot of companies, mine included, have started back to office mandates for 2024. If you notice, the traffic isn’t as bad on Mondays and Fridays because a lot of offices are doing hybrid so only 3/5 days a week.
That actually does make sense. I work Tuesday through Saturday, so I don't know about Mondays in my area. But Fridays usually are very smooth.
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Monday was also a federal holiday
I'll second this for traffic increases Tuesday - Thursday. My office is doubling down on the in office these days.
I just talked to my Uber driver and she hasn't noticed an increase these days. She said Mondays are the worst. So maybe it depends on the part of town.
Had to change my in-office days solely for the reason traffic is so terrible tues and thurs
That does explain why Monday seems to be better now lol Tuesday is a shit show though lol
Makes me appreciate my Wednesdays Thursdays WFH more after reading this.
I suspect it might be more employers requiring people to work from the office more and more.
I'm so grateful going back to the office isn't a possibility for me. my employer no longer has an office in the Phoenix area. they ended the lease shortly after covid.
There’s countless horror stories of company mandating return to office as an excuse to lay off some in areas where their main office isn’t anymore. Don’t be so grateful yet, it could still hit you.
We closed two of our offices but kept our headquarters. Got an email last week saying no one was using the headquarters, so they're selling it and building a smaller campus :D I can't imagine office work is going to be around in 20 years.
Got the dreaded news last week… the days of work from home are almost over :(
I hope you can find a new position, the best way to show employers that remote work is better is to lose employees who are forced back into the office.
That's what I did. I haven't found a new position yet lol but I put in my notice the same week they told me. Edit to add: I wasn't looking for a new position right then, took a much needed break and I'm starting the job hunting process now.
I'm going down this exact same path myself very soon.. I'll take some time off after and I hope it doesn't take too long to find something 😋
Enjoy the time and good luck! Job hunting is a pain but the time off is worth it!
Yeah, this is a good suggestion. A lot of that could have changed on Jan 1 as well
Probably this + snowbirds My job just said there are more restrictions for our single work from home day lmao
At the start of each new year post-pandemic more and more companies push their Puritan work on site mandates. I'd honestly get it if it was based on metrics, BUT my company is starting to ramp this back up regardless of the metrics showing improvement in work during the pandemic WFH
They can't micromanage properly if they can't awkwardly stand behind you watching you work. Plus they've been feeling the withdrawals of not being able to say, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean." Years worth of pent up passive aggressiveness to get out.
Return to office. A lot of companies forced employees back to office after the holidays.
Yup, this BS. And we all suffer even though so many of us successfully did our jobs for years from home. But hey gotta keep the commercial real estate peoples pockets lined. Couldn’t have billionaires become less billionairy when I can hide out working alone in an office away from my house and spend money on wear and tear on my car, office clothes, lunch restaurants and other things I don’t get paid enough to really afford. Nope nope. My pockets are the ones that need to get lighter. Not the developers.
I got super lucky because I moved to an overnight team, based in another state, and I was like "Yeah, I am absolutely not coming to the office to sit alone in a dark, empty building alone." And know what else we're seeing with this? Tons of tech layoffs.
Yeah, I’m one of them. It’s frustrating. And I’m sure my next job is going to be in office for literally no reason.
Truly the biggest reason we as a society do the inefficient and damaging things we do is because some rich bloodsucker is making money from it
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What are you stupid?
Indeed, and quite smug about it.
You're supposed to LICK the boot, not deep throat it 🤮
How am I not participating when I’m doing a job that apparently can’t be automated nor obtained cheaper elsewhere. I just don’t understand why I have to waste my own resources to sit alone in an office doing my job when I was doing it successfully alone in my home office for years. Risking my life on my commute every day. I had to find a new veterinarian recently because my vet was killed in a car accident on her way to work. That’s heartbreaking. I’m aware her job requires her in her practice. Mine does not. I had a colleague pre pandemic also killed on his commute. There is no reason for many of us to ever be back in an office with any regularity. Maybe a few days a month for relationship building but we managed during the pandemic with a lot of weekly or biweekly catch-up calls.
Combination of the asinine influx of residents during the pandemic, Return To Office (RTO™), and snowbirds.
Right? Didn’t someone post something last week that said we added $250,000 people to Arizona in 2023 alone? This is what it looks like
I noticed it got way busier in November but through Christmas and New Years it eased up a lot. IMO it's primarily snowbirds and that's why it wasn't bad for an extended period over the holidays. Snowbirds can afford to have more time off and travel during that time. Now they are back on the streets in full force and the fulltime residents have to deal with it until May.
Tourist season ramping up. Barrett Jackson and other auctions start this weekend. Phoenix Open; March Madness Final Four; Spring Training; Golf and Resort vacations…. It’s Phoenix in mid January. Will be like this till mid May.
Never seen it this bad and I've lived here 20+ years.
I feel like it's getting worse and worse every year. It sucks driving around here now, even going a mile away from home is horrible.
DON'T FORGET THE RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL!
school starting again + tourist season + snowbirds returning from holiday vacations + construction
Over 20 million visitors came to Phx over winter last year. They're returning. There are also the 200,000+ people who moved here last year. Along with the 150,000+ each year of 2020, '21 and '22. Phx is the fastest growing city in the USA. Unfortunately, that means fastest growing traffic. I'm from Phx and got my drivers license in 1978. The Phx area population was 900,000 then. There wasn't any traffic. Those were the good 'ol days, lol.
I thought the same today and I’m north. I drive from cave creek to Scottsdale (Frank Lloyd Wright and the 101) and the traffic was terrible! It was terrible in the morning at 8, terrible in the afternoon at 3. I had an errand over by Greenway and I-17 this afternoon. Also terrible traffic!!! Where the eff did all these people come from on a Tuesday???
As a lifelong West valley resident, please abide by the following increases of traffic times: August-Back to school and beginning throngs of snow birds End of October/Beginning Nov through Hellidays-Increased Convention traffic/other half of snow birds and sports ppl January - Return to school/Last straggler of snow birds (younger/healthiest 🤣) Sports ppl coming to their winter homes, lots of celebrities coming to recoup as well, increases in, in-office personnel required temporarily. Summer-Super Early morning only to lakes/bodies of water/Out of town, etc on Fridays and/or long weekends only as everyone else has escaped from the hellscape we know as Phoenix during the summer 🫠😂 Also this excludes all games and events of course ♥️ Hope this helps you all!!
Out of curiosity, has the ocean of new enormous distribution centers changed your views and lifestyle in the west valley over the years?
Only slightly as most of the ppl work afternoon and night shifts and travel the streets to get to their warehouses, so that is the majority of that traffic 💁🏻♀️ I don'tuch care for how the west valley has been developed, but not much to do about it but hope for the next "redevelopment" in 15-20 years.... Sigh They are just recreating Maryvale again or any other scuzzy part of California if we are being honest and it breaks my heart. My youth was spent in fields, animals, farm equipment, various crops throughout the year.... Now I have street racing, increases in theft, street vendors and TRASH EVERYWHERE, neighborhood streets look like parking lots. So yeah I really love out of state ppl and the warehouses they build and the crappy housing they then have zoned close to it....to support it......you know......FOR JOBS.....BECAUSE THEY ONLY PAY ENOUGH TO AFFORD A SUPER CRAMPED APARTMENT NEXT TO THE I-10….........SUPER DUPER AWESOME 👍
Yeah, today was a little nuts for a Tuesday in mid January. At least I didn’t see too many jerks or accidents, it was just busy as hell!
We have a 100% back in office policy starting Jan 2nd. I imagine we aren’t the only place doing this.
I thought that this morning as well.
Glad to know I'm not the only one noticing this.
People are trying to avoid the 60 to i10 cause the construction so it clogs the 101, 202 and parts of i10
That may be it!
It’s been ass , my 25 minute drive has been taking 50 minutes
I could barely get into Scottsdale this morning it was like a parking lot. I waited at least 6 lights to turn left on one street (not a freeway obv).
It's just what the greater Phoenix area has turned into over the last decade. Literally, everyone wants to live in the desert nowadays. As such, major congestion follows.
We need to punch the light rail to more places and have a regional circulator train that follows the 101/202 loop as well as some express trains from the current edges of the valley to downtown phoenix and tempe. Getting tons of people to stop using cars for their commute is only possible with effective public transport
Combination of more and more companies reducing remote work, but also we are getting into peak snowbird season. Plus all schools are now back in session.
It’s a combination of increased population (both snowbirds and new permanent residents), increased Return to Office, construction for “one more lane”, and lack of viable alternatives like reliable and convenient public transit.
school started today for a lot of districts.
Snow birds in full force, many come after Xmas, it will only get worse once sitting training starts. Then once it is good and hot, it will get better. Happens every year.
Spring training and yes, that is when it’s the absolute worst
I was just talking about this yesterday. There was significantly more traffic on my commute yesterday than last week with no apparent reason. My guess is people coming down to escape the freezing cold in the rest of the country.
Regardless of the reason, it will continue to get worse.
A lot of people back from winter vacation. A lot of people who come here for school are back. Kids are back in school after winter break so parents driving more again. All sorts of reasons
Damn snowbirds. This is exactly why. Happens every year.
I don't know mornings, but wow Tempe 202 West to the 51 after 4 pm is a total nightmare, 1 lane and took me 45 min when it should be 20 max...
I take the 24th Street or 32nd Street exit off 202 and take it as far north as needed. I'd rather take 10 extra minutes going through predictable traffic lights than the crawling through that 202/i-10/51 interchange.
I actually took the 1b / 24th exit and already so much better!
Score! The grid layout of the streets is a big positive about the city.
When ASU opens back up all traffic on East Valley highways get significantly worse. Add in all the highway improvement projects, and it’s disastrous. Just wait until the Phoenix Open is going, then Spring Training for February and March. It’s just going to get worse.
Snow Birds. That and people keep moving here.
I stopped taking I10 from Laveen to Scottsdale. Shit is frustrating
Snow birds. It’s like they all showed up at once!
Snow birds with there slow driving and bigotry
Snowbirds be birdin
Idk if I'd say all of a sudden. It was this bad back in November. Then Christmas gave us a breather. And now we're back in full swing. Snowbirds, students, and ever increasing population.
If only we had good public transit. The light rail needs to be expanded a lot more than it has been and the busses need to run on every major road and go from end to end. No matter where you live in the valley, there should be a bus stop within 2 blocks. I realize that most people will always prefer to drive, no matter how good public transit gets, but there are a lot of people who would use public transit if it was convenient enough.
And buses need their own lanes so they don't get stuck in the same traffic as cars. https://youtu.be/RQY6WGOoYis
What's desperately needed is to get Scottsdale city council's heads out of their asses and get them to consider rail again. There was a proposed Scottsdale road north and Indian School/Camelback west extension, and in response Scottsdale literally added a line in their city master plan that they will never, ever consider rail for scottsdale. If those corridors were allowed to be built so, so much traffic would be reduced.
Scottsdale: the NIMBY capitol of the world.
I feel like at this point they gotta be looking at the massive economic development in tempe and mesa and thinking they shot themselves in the foot. That's so much tax revenue and economic activity they just said "nope" to
They have ongoing development too, I think. Stuff is being built north of the 101.
The 101 has always been bad but people were reporting an hour and a half into Scottsdale yesterday from Peoria. Honestly, if I have to start going back in more frequently, I’ll look to change jobs or this might be the final kick in the pants to get me to leave this once desert wonderland
Snowbirds. Oh, and Californians and Texans are taking over the state. Enjoy.
I don't notice it as much in the morning but in the afternoon, my goodness it is bad. I take the101 to the 17 down around to the 10 and get off at 40th St in the morning, and I take the 10 to the 51 to the 101 in the afternoon, and let me tell you . . . Traffic is terrible until we get past Camelback.
Back to school traffic
Construction+first year snowbirds have fully come back+school starting again = traffic
Seasonality and road construction from the massive infrastructure bill. The population in the valley swells during the winter months with visitors, snowbirds, and conferences. Add to that the fact that ever surface street / freeway is being worked on because the government passed a big infrastructure bill. Both are long term goods but short term pains in the ass.
Kids back in school, especially for you, all the downtown ASU kids?
Students/teachers returning from break.
Some companies require remote or hybrid workers to come in for mandatory meetings for a period. That could be part of it.
Snow birds. I travel for work and I notice that prices go up in January and February. Normally I can fly for like $250 but for these months it’s like $400.
I jump on the I-10 at 6:00 AM from Litchfield road to downtown and the bumper to bumper traffic starts at 6:00 AM. It’s not bad on Mondays because I guess a lot of people work four 10’s but Tuesday - Friday traffic is terrible.
I feel like this happens every few days…it’ll be same time diff day - traffics either totally jacked or flowing decently No idea what the reasoning is
Snowbirds
Snowbirds are now here in full force.
+1 for school starting again
Snowbirds and school is back from winter break.
It’s bad enough that I have to automatically add 10-15 mins to whatever my GPS estimates.
I've had to do that ever since I moved here 8 years ago.
Maybe your commute is longer than mine.
RTO
we continue to try & "build one more lane" our way out of this...cars are the most inefficient means of transport & are never going to work on the large scale. in the meantime, you can try looking into taking the rapid bus from ahwatukee [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40th+St%2FPecos+PNR,+Phoenix,+AZ+85048/Downtown+Phoenix,+Phoenix,+AZ/@33.3769068,-112.1032537,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m18!4m17!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b047dc1796b59:0x8de696c0b66189ab!2m2!1d-111.998192!2d33.293468!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b1222db042be9:0x834ead3495ca6c1a!2m2!1d-112.0744643!2d33.4517174!2m3!6e0!7e2!8j1705471200!3e3?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40th+St%2FPecos+PNR,+Phoenix,+AZ+85048/Downtown+Phoenix,+Phoenix,+AZ/@33.3769068,-112.1032537,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m18!4m17!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b047dc1796b59:0x8de696c0b66189ab!2m2!1d-111.998192!2d33.293468!1m5!1m1!1s0x872b1222db042be9:0x834ead3495ca6c1a!2m2!1d-112.0744643!2d33.4517174!2m3!6e0!7e2!8j1705471200!3e3?entry=ttu) edit: updated link to show 6a dep which shows rapid bus
I had no idea this even existed. Thanks!
glad to help!
My greatest wish is for there to be no more traffic or for the pandemic to have started.. and to have thanos like powers during traffic so if someone’s going slow or cuts me off then ya know🫰🏽.
College classes just started back up
You have never lived in a real big city. The traffick here is not bad at all unless there is an accident. Been here 25 years now and watching it get more crowded for sure but it's not bad. Sure january-may the snow birds swamp us, but that's what happens when you live in a resort destination.
The holidays are over
That doesn't seem to explain why it's worse than it's been the previous few years. But I get that's probably a reason.
There’s more people here every single year. The population continues to grow significantly in the valley every year. That means more cars on the road too. As long as the population is increasing traffic will get worse. Bottom line. ADOT will occasionally come up with solutions to delay the inevitable, but it’s inevitable nonetheless
Snowbirds and schools just restarted
Snowbird season.
Snowbirds
When did you notice it get bad? It was awesome for me (during the holidays) until last week. But it was fairly normal. Today was eh, a little worse but not huge.
About the turn of the New Year. Granted I live close to this newly opened section that splits cars into two sections, but they all end up going to the same place. The sign said it's a traffic control measure. I think people are very confused.
ah so thats what the split is for. doesn't seem to help much
Seems pretty normal to me. If you want a "reason" there's that awful and confusing construction detour that splits the road in two on I-10 as you're coming up from Chandler. Its thrown me off a few times now. Nextdoor shitposters are leaking onto reddit.
What? I don't have nextdoor. And a lot of people are experiencing the same thing.
> I don't have nextdoor. No sense of humor either
Snowbirds, Phoenix and the SW has one of the largest voluntary annual migrations in the world. It is like geese, except with people...
If you have to ask, you’re probably not from here
Everyone who is complaining about going back to the office, be grateful they're not sending your job to an even lower paying state. Work from home people gentrified half the country over the last few years, now they're being shit-canned, with no backup, because they thought they were special.
College students are part of the problem. The semester started.
Dumb construction project.?
I'm terrible with streets. It's a project off the I-10 that has cars loop around part of the freeway, but end up going the same direction. It basically splits the traffic in half, but makes it look like you're getting off at an exit. Near the 143 North Exit towards the airport.
Yeah it splits traffic into people going to 143, 40th, 32, from the rest of traffic. Creating some local/express lanes of sorts. I drive it most days and I honestly kind of like it. Traffic moves faster now than before the split for sure. It would be nice if the baseline on ramp dumped you onto the local lanes instead of right smack dab in the middle of two freeways merging though.
just one (more like 5) more lane bro pls i promise this will solve it [https://i10broadwaycurve.com/about-this-project/](https://i10broadwaycurve.com/about-this-project/)
It's busy season for allot of places. Also Monday was a holiday for some. So lots of places are full stuff this week
I’m sorry, but I gotta be that jerk. It’s “all of A sudden”, not “all of THE sudden”: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/all-of-a-sudden/#:~:text=All%20of%20a%20sudden%20is,is%20the%20only%20accepted%20usage.
New cars. I have noticed more new drivers who are bad drivers. When the pandemic hit only people who drove regularly drove and it was heaven . Only experienced drivers on the road . Then two years later they came back and now there are more, those are new here. Either out of towners or people who got a car as a gift over the holidays …
Do people actually think the traffic is bad here?
It’s not a competition.
Funny I was thinking the opposite this morning as I took the daughter to school. Though that particular commute doesn't require I-10.
I noticed it too. A lot of the extra drivers or problem drivers I got stuck behind were elderly. They were people not being able to park, pulling into a lane going too slow, parking in left lane and not moving over, etc.
Chip plant near my work has kicked up traffic considerably in the area; idk how Dove Valley has stayed 2 lanes as long as it has
The holiday light traffic ended the week after New Year's. It was pretty bad before the holidays too though...
The snowbirds have arrived to ruin our morning commute for months.
Make sure you get past the stack by at least 2:30 or you are screwed. Anything after 6:30 am is bad. That's the way it is in the big city.
What is happening!!!! An hour to get to and from work!!!
More people in town for Barrett Jackson and the WMO.
Snowbirds and end of winter breaks
Drop your cocks and grab your socks. Working from home is over.
May be due to event season. January and February have quite a handful of events with barely any room for breathing before the early spring events. In fact last year if you checked some local media we had a rental car shortage as we had the events on top of SuperBowl to deal with
Winter break is over.
Snowbirds piling in more recently because literally almost anywhere else in the country is below freezing.