Seattle traffic slowed a whole lot in 2023

SEATTLE — Drivers in Greater Seattle lost an average 12 more hours sitting in traffic congestion during 2023 than the year before, the worst deterioration in the U.S., says the annual INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard released Monday night.

The figures reflect this region’s distinct back-to-work patterns since the COVID-19 pandemic. While cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago returned to gridlock by 2022, Seattle’s tech-dominated workforce, who flocked to telecommuting, have waited longer to repopulate their cubicles.

In a more lasting trend, INRIX also declared midday to be the new rush hour. More trips begin at noon than at 8 a.m., national data indicate, and the trend is even stronger here.

“Remote and Hybrid Work Shift Can’t Curb Congestion,” the study team headlined its findings.

A motorist in the Seattle-Everett-Bellevue area driving at peak times would have lost 58 hours to delay, compared with free-flowing traffic. The figure was 46 hours in 2022.

“In a fairly heavy telecommuting region, some people are coming back onto the roads,” said Bob Pishue, traffic analyst for Kirkland-based INRIX.

Though traffic snarls are worsening, Seattle-area slowdowns last year still totaled six hours less, or 11% shorter, than in 2019, the report found.

Seattle metro returns to nation’s top 10 most congested areas

The average delay for Seattle-area drivers increased to 58 hours during 2023, compared with 46 the year before, rising from 12th to 10th most congested in the U.S., the INRIX traffic data firm reported. Traffic jams here still trail Los Angeles, where motorists lost 89 hours.

Source: INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard (Reporting by Mike Lindblom, chart by Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)

While trip delays around here worsened the most, we do not have the longest traffic jams. New York City’s 101 hours average delay was the worst on the planet, followed by Mexico City and London. Seattle ranked 10th among U.S. cities, just behind Washington, D.C., Houston and Atlanta. The average U.S. motorist was delayed 42 hours by congestion.

The slowest spots

Washington state’s worst traffic snarls were at northbound Interstate 5 between Northgate and the 128th Street Southwest exit near Everett, an average 11-minute time loss.

Freeway conditions there could worsen next year, when the state will embark on a long-awaited redecking job that will block two lanes of I-5 in North Seattle.

Fortunately, Sound Transit will open its light rail extension from Northgate to Lynnwood on Aug. 30, along with 3,800 parking stalls and frequent buses at four stations — a relief valve for I-5 drivers who can change travel habits, until the trains fill too.

No place in the Puget Sound region made INRIX’s list of the 25 worst corridors, but Portland was No. 15 between its Rose Quarter and the old I-5 Columbia River bridges between Oregon and Washington. The two states are now doing early design for a massive new bridge, with more lanes plus light rail, but cost estimates have already soared to $6 billion with no clear schedule yet.

The most-delayed Seattle-area corridors in 2023 were:

• I-5 northbound, from Northgate to South Everett, 11.2 minutes of delay at 4 p.m.
• I-5 northbound, from Albro Place to downtown Lynnwood, 9.8 minutes delay at 4 p.m.
• Interstate 405 northbound, from Highway 167 to Interstate 90, 9.5 minutes delay at 8 a.m.
• I-5 southbound, from 164th Street Southwest (north Lynnwood) to Northgate, 8.4 minutes delay at 7 a.m.
• Highway 167 southbound, 15th Street Southwest (Auburn) to Highway 410, 7.9 minutes delay at 3 p.m.
• I-5 northbound, from Boeing Freeway (Everett) to Marysville, 7.7 minutes delay at 4 p.m.

These delay averages reflect all five weekdays including brisk Monday and Friday morning trips. Slowdowns tend to be worse mid-week or whenever a crash blocks some lanes.

INRIX continually gathers data from 310 million devices, including in-car navigation devices, cellphones and parking pay stations.

The rival TomTom navigation company ranked the Seattle area 15th slowest in North America, with an average 15 minutes, 17 seconds to go six miles in 2023. (Toronto at 28 minutes fared the worst.)

People drove less statewide during the pandemic, but freeways might fill again soon. The Washington State Department of Transportation reports that as of 2022, the most recent year available, drivers averaged 160.2 million daily miles, up slightly from 2021, but fewer than the 171.3 million miles in 2019.

WSDOT’s next big highway widening opens in 2025, resulting in two toll lanes, two general lanes and some new exit lanes each way between Renton and Bellevue, on I-405.

Midday rush hour

INRIX is just beginning to grasp the phenomenon of midday trips, which the new report doesn’t explain in detail.

The rapid growth of deliveries is a factor, especially here “with Amazon in our backyard,” Pishue said.

Afternoon traffic is thicker than mornings because more leisure, shopping and other trips mix with commuters. Six years ago, Sound Transit passenger surveys documented a 50-50 mix between commutes and other trips, on its light rail line from Seattle to SeaTac.

Friday, June 7, offered a glimpse of the new peaks, as drivers were riding their brakes by 1:30 p.m., a sunny day, from Green Lake to Lynnwood.

Paradoxically, the surge in midday trips didn’t erase peak-time delays in most cities.

More midday driving sets the stage for a tougher p.m. commute, by spilling over into afternoon, so the so-called shoulders of the peak begin sooner, Pishue suspects. Seattle data shows the noon hour producing the most total trips, followed by 3 p.m. and 2 p.m., including arterials as well as highways.

About 6% of central Seattle employees telecommuted just before the pandemic hit in early 2020, according to data from employer-sponsored Commute Seattle. In the depth of the pandemic, as many as one-third of employees statewide worked virtual or hybrid shifts. By 2022, a pattern emerged of easy travel Mondays and Fridays but busier office commutes midweek.

Amazon told its employees, who number 64,000 in Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond, to work in-person at least three days a week by May 2023. More than half who commute are taking transit, company shuttles, carpools, walk or bike, the company said Monday. Its Seattle offices are causing upticks in sidewalk use, pub and restaurant customers, and traffic snarls along Denny Way.

The Route 8 bus on Denny “has slowed to a crawl,” so walking is sometimes faster than buses in general traffic, said Kirk Hovenkotter, executive director of the Transportation Choices Coalition. He supports increased bus-only lanes, in Seattle’s upcoming transportation levy package.

As people return to the road, ridership on trains and buses has also been climbing.

An average 88,144 passengers a day rode the 1 Line in May 2024, a 12% yearly gain and surpassing 2019 counts. King County Metro Transit reports a bus ridership gain of 12.5% this April compared with 2023, but at 262,086 daily boardings that’s not quite two-thirds of April 2019 levels.