Community Corner

Study: Bellevue's Interstate 405 Among the Worst Afternoon Commutes in the Nation

Interstate 405 between State Route 520 and Coal Creek Parkway ranks 21st in the nation in person-hours spent during the afternoon rush hour, according to a study by The Texas A&M University. It's the worst afternoon commute in the area, the study said.

You knew it was slow-going in the afternoon southbound through Bellevue on Interstate 405. A study by The Texas A&M University shows that you're right.

According to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute at The Texas A&M University, the southbound Interstate 405 corridor through Bellevue is ranked the 21st worst afternoon commute out of 328 corridors measured throughout the United States. That stretch is the worst afternoon commute in the Seattle area, according to the study.

The top 10 in this category include seven Los Angeles freeways, two corridors in San Francisco and one in Austin.

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That ranking is based on the amount of delay -- measured in annual person-hours spent per mile on the 4.5 mile stretch of freeway between 3 and 7 p.m. on the weekdays. The study concluded that people wasted a combined total of 304,000 hours annually on that stretch of road (that's the measure of all time spent by all commuters on that stretch of road over the weekday afternoon commute).

However, it is far from the costliest, in terms of wasted fuel -- 66th in the nation--  or congestion costs -- only $297 million a year, which is 69th in the nation.

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According to the study's authors, the ranking is the first nationwide effort to identify reliability problems at specific stretches of highway responsible for significant traffic congestion at different times and different days.

The full study has been posted to this article, and you can check out the corridor study at the Texas Transprtation Institute.

 

Area Corridor Endpoints Miles Person-hours (x 1,000) Rank Wasted Fuel (Gallons x 1,000) Rank Congestion Cost (x $10,000) Rank Seattle I-405 SB WA-520/Ne 14th St/Exit 14 to SE Coal Creek Pkwy/Exit 10 4.5 304 21 702 66 29,467 69

 

What do you think? Are you unfortunate enough to be stuck in this commute?


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