As you may have guessed from the post title, Seattle, WA happens to be the place I call home. Now I understand that when most people think of bad traffic the obvious place that comes to mind is Los Angeles, and that's completely understandable, but during my daily commute to work the other day I had enough time (an hour and a half to be exact) to look up some traffic statistics that were quite interesting. Also, they gave me the intense urge to jump of the bridge I happened to be sitting on at the time.
According to Forbes, the average annual amount of time wasted in traffic in Los Angeles is 56 hours. Comparatively, The average annual amount of time wasted in traffic in Seattle is 33 hours. Now I know you're probably thinking "That's a difference of almost an entire day per year." which is true, but there is one thing you need consider. Los Angeles has a population roughly 6 times that of Seattles. Not to mention, according to Tom Tom, Seattle holds the number one position for congestion growth in the last year. Awesome.
As pissed as I was finding about all of these stats, especially while was sitting in the middle of the 1-90 bridge, surfing the internet on my phone; I realized it's not the overall shitty traffic that brings me to the borderline sociopathic way I now drive. Its individual shitty drivers themselves. Which leads me to the conclusion that Seattles growing traffic problem is not the result of any population growth, or bridge project. But rather the direct result of Seattle having, maybe the shittiest drivers in the nation. So congratulations to people like the driver of the Prius that just cut me off merging to the freeway at 35 miles per hour. You can take pride in knowing that you having done your part in securing Seattles position atop at least one top ten list. And as we all learned from the Seahawks Monday night football matchup against the Packers: A win, no matter how shitty, is still a win.
