Portland has 19th worst traffic (Seattle is worst, LA #2 according to TomTom report)

Portland Business Journal ^ | December 3, 2009

[Stoat]

Portland has the 19th worst traffic congestion in the country, with 23 percent of the city’s roads having “heavy delays,” according to a report released Wednesday.

Seattle’s road woes are the worst, followed by Los Angeles at No. 2, with 38 percent of its roads having heavy delays, followed by Chicago (37 percent), San Francisco (35 percent) and New York City (31 percent), according to global positioning system (GPS) company TomTom of Concord, Mass.

The company ranked cities as most to least congested according to how fast cars could travel on the street network. Traffic was defined as congested if drivers could travel at only 70 percent or less of the posted speed limit, and an average hour-long commute included 20 minutes or more of significant delays, according to TomTom.

Of the 30 major cities included in the study, Minneapolis had the least-congested streets, with only 17 percent.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

Between the Mexican border and the Canadian border the narrowest area of I5 is right smack in the middle of Seattle...

Ummmm..., you haven't seen I-5 in downtown Portland on the Eastside, then... LOL...

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

My cousin used to be normal but over the years he became just more left and left and he's gone to the deep end. And of course he relocated to Portland around 7 years ago.

It probably has to do more with your cousin, I would say...

I count about 40 plus years in Portland and hadn't once ever considered being a liberal... LOL... And there are plenty others like that in Portland, too.

You may be running around in the wrong circles. Obviously your cousin was (and you can find "those circles" in any big city).

And, as far as Evangelical Christians are concerned, I was always able to find plenty of them, too. The churches are not as common as in the Bible Belt (like in Tulsa), but where you find them (and there's plenty enough to find without any problem), they have committed Christians (I'm speaking about the Christian Evangelical ones, don't know about the other offshoots).

[Salvation]

I’ll drive in Seattle any day compared with LA.

[Salvation]

Oregon Ping

Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Oregon Ping List.

[Stoat]

I’ll drive in Seattle any day compared with LA.

Why do you feel that way?  Just curious :-)

[dila813]

That is because they are too busy building duck crossings.

[Stoat]

Thank you very much for pinging the Oregon list  :-)

 

[Clemenza]

Portland is basically a low-rent version of Seattle with less jobs and more lesbians.

[Star Traveler]

Oh..., and one more thing, the tightest curve on I-5, for its entire length (southern border to northern border) is right there in Portland... called the Terwilliger Curves... :-)

http://wikimapia.org/6258808/Terwilliger-Curves

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

Portland is basically a low-rent version of Seattle with less jobs and more lesbians.

Well, just because y'all in Seattle want to overpay on housing doesn't make it better in Seattle... LOL...

[Clemenza]

The only thing I miss about Seattle is the fact that I could easily afford to live in a large apartment in the heart of Belltown. Compared to here in NYC, Seattle is a bargain.

I loved the rose festival in Portland. Cool light rail too.

[Salvation]

It just seems that I get lost every time I try to drive in LA. At least if I get lost in Seattle, people were nice enough to help me.

So I guess I have two reasons.

Actually three — it seems like the traffic is sooooo fast in LA.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

I loved the rose festival in Portland. Cool light rail too.

The Rose Festival is a super great event in Portland, to be sure. I noticed shortly after 9/11 that there weren't as many Navy ships coming into downtown Portland, at the seawall. And in addition to that, the security got awfully tight and the ships were fenced off and even river traffic on the Willamette was escorted back and forth by the US Coast Guard, when that had never been done before. I hated to see that happen.

And yes, I like the light rail, too. A little side note here, the Westside light rail (the Blue or Red Line goes that way) has the deepest passenger station in North America (from what I read before). It's the station buried way underground in the West Hills, and you ride the elevator up to the Portland Zoo...

MAX Light Rail

A three-mile (4.8 km) section consists of two tunnels below Washington Park. While this section has only one station, it is 260 feet (79 m) below ground level, making it the deepest train station in North America and the second-deepest train station in the world.

[Stoat]

That’s interesting, thank you. One caution that I would wish to convey, however, relating to driving in Seattle is that cars with Republican, Conservative, or related bumper stickers are quite likely to be vandalized....there were numerous reports of that during the last election cycle and for a number of years previous to that as well. It gets more friendly the farther away you get from Seattle....Eastern Washington is actually quite sane and rational and you probably wouldn’t have any troubles at all over there.

[Clinging Bitterly]

You know it!

[Clinging Bitterly]

Too often it seems as though people have no sense of the flow and you see 50-60 MPH difference in speed between adjacent lanes. I’m all for moving along but I just don’t like being in that situation. So I go through the West side where it may be a bit slower but it’s also more steady.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Yeah lots of foot traffic. Wouldn’t be so bad if every other person wasn’t some kind of a panhandler. If they could just stay under the Burnside bridge...

[Clinging Bitterly]

Cool light rail til you find out how much it costs.

[31R1O]

Well howdy, soon to be neighbor. My wife and I have been up here since 2004. Freepmail me when you get to town.

[radiohead]

Misty ping, my little salmon.

This is why a 12 minute trip by car took me 45 min to an hour by 2/3 buses.