Hey all,
So… I was stuck in the same situation yet again the other day, and the haunting, gnawing question can finally be ignored no longer. Why… WHY… is traffic always exponentially worse in certain spots at 2:30 and 3:00 than it is at 5:00?? I’ve seen this over and over again. Here’s how it goes…
2:30
(Isn’t this hours before most people get off work??)
(Anise, having a mobile office and working all over PDX at every possible hour, pulls onto the I-5 south exit going towards downtown and the SW suburbs…)
HORRIBLE traffic jam.
The next day…
5:00
(Isn’t this when people with normal set work hours leave the workplace??)
(Pulling onto the exact same exit…)
Not a vehicle to be seen.
Or this can happen, too…
At any point in the afternoon…
(exact same exit)
(traffic is a complete mess right up until the point where the last exit for downtown is passed, and then almost completely clears out on the way to the suburbs.)
Because everyone is trying to get their driving done before rush hour kicks in?
Also, I suspect the “9 to 5” workday is pretty much a myth these days, with lots of people working from home, working flexible hours, or just plain not working at all.
I too have experienced bad traffic jams, on I95 in VA at 2:30 on a Thursday afternoon. My guess is a lot of people are traveling to get errands or business done (salesmen, contractors, delivery drivers, etc.), or just passing through, and they take the Interstate because it’s the biggest road and has no traffic lights.
With a certain volume of traffic the jams happen with someone following too closely and repeatedly braking, construction zones, police stops, or simply merge lanes. The onramp/exit ramp combo lanes or turning a normal lane into an exit lane both tend to cause lane-changing and brake lights, leading to traffic jams.
So many people have flex hours, working from home and not working the typical 8-5 work day. I used to commute from Salem to Tigard and back. What a nightmare I-5 is from Hwy 217 to Wilsonville. A complete standstill for no reason. God forbid there’s an accident. I’m so glad I don’t have that commute anymore. It was one of the major factors in my changing jobs.
I used to live in the Adirondacks in upstate New York where 12 inch overnight snowfalls were common. When I moved to Cincinnati, where it took all year to get that much snow, I found that 4 inches or more of snow made for an easier commute, because the lightweights stayed home.
Same with the rush hour commute. The people who drive during rush hour mainly know what they’re doing. The lightweights drive earlier or later to avoid the traffic.
Around here, “rush hour” really depends on where and when; if you live in the far burbs, the traffic won’t really pick up until everyone starts getting home, and if you work downtown, rush-hour is pretty much when everyone gets off for the day and leaves.
Plus, some days have earlier or later rush hours than others…
Pretty much any time of day there’s enough traffic on freeways that any accident creates a 2-5 mile long stop-and-go. It takes the police & fire dept’s an hour to clear the mess, then it takes traffic another 10-15 minutes to recover to normal.
That can happen at any spot on any freeway at any time during the day or evening.
It is not true around here. It is crowded at 3, but less so than at 5, which is a bit more than 6. And accidents will screw things up whatever time it is. We went to the theater last night leaving at 7 - the bridge eastbound (we were going west) was jammed as were the approaches, and northbound 101 was jammed because of an accident on the other bridge.
It is also time of day dependent. Friday morning is the best of the week - Friday afternoon is the worst.
Anise, where do you live? Your profile says you’re in Nashville, but PDX seems to be Portland, OR. How rush hour works varies a lot from one city to another.
(I know nothing about either Nashville or Portland, but in Portland, I’d expect the bike paths to be clogged at rush hour!)
In DC, many streets have no parking and extra lanes (lanes switch direction depending on time of day) during rush hour. I can get to work in 20 minutes during morning rush hour on the rare occasion that I want to pay $20 to park, but it can take 45 minutes other times.
The profile does still say Nashville… yep, I’ve lived in PDX for a while now. These are all great theories… and it feels like at least there might be SOME explanation for the mystery. Voyager is the one who’s describing what I always saw as a normal traffic pattern before moving here, but the location is a little hard to figure out…
You shouldn’t really gauge traffic by the freeway, at least not if you’re trying to determine “rush hour.” Freeways are more like macro economies, with all kinds of influences–not to mention, limited entry, limited routing and limited exiting. Even when an accident doesn’t actually block traffic, it affects traffic because people instinctively slow down just to look at it. Just like macro economies, everyone wants to explain what is the cause of what, but really, there are so many factors, it’s never simple.
The micro economies of traffic are the surface streets, in the business areas. Those will more consistently reflect “rush hour” characteristics, because people generally have more options, and they can affect the overall situation of an areas more by their choices of where to go, etc.
I say this as someone who was an L.A. taxi driver for nearly two years, when I had a lot of time to completely learn not just the mapping of a huge city, but how the different areas changed their traffic patterns over the course of a day.
Out in NW Portland and Swan Island there are some significantly large employers who have shifts that start at 0600, which means they get out at 1400 and hit the freeway right afterward. If you’re getting traffic jams on I-5 from the Marquam to the Jantzen Beach, it’s probably because of that. It pretty much stays sucky until about 1800 or so unless there’s a game or something at Moda, then it will suck indefinitely.
School is getting around 2:30 and 3:00 pm in my city and the traffic is slow b/c of the school buses and parents picking up kids . People have to stop every time
a school bus stop to let kids off the bus .
These are all great theories… and it feels like at least there might be SOME explanation for the mystery. 
Voyager is the one who’s describing what I always saw as a normal traffic pattern before moving here, but the location is a little hard to figure out…