Here in Seattle, there is a particular regional lingo. We don't talk about rain as being an occasional thing, we talk about sun being occasional (as in my friend's blog "Cloudy, Chance of Sunbreaks").
There is also a "distraction slowdown", seemingly worse here than in most places I've lived. Someone might be simply stopped at the side of the road, looking at map and it will cause a 1/2 mile backup.
Things haven't changed much from when I lived here in the '70s. The traffic was really bad then - made worse by asinine toll booths on one of the only two bridges across Lake Washington. Since then, the city population has grown pretty dramatically and there have been no significant freeway improvements (other than a couple of part-time HOV lanes).
Stats say that it is the second or third worst traffic in a major American city (depending on whose survey one listens to).
And they don't plan to improve the freeways. No new freeways are being built, expansions of the bridges across Lake Washington are occasionally discussed but never acted upon, and it gets worse every year.
Thank the gods I made the point of living close to work this time. Darn well worth the extra cost.
Posted by artandscience at September 16, 2007 11:49 AM