Detroit Area Traffic

What do you think of the traffic lately? Has it impacted you any? How does it compare to 40, 30, 20, 10 years ago? I saw article from May of 2008 and it told that Detroit was the second worst for commuters, but things, IMO, aren't as bad as LA or Chicago.

For me, traffic has been relatively smooth. I used to commute from Royal Oak to Oakland U everyday and taffic seemed pretty light on the Chrysler and on Woodward. I know the Mixing Bowl is a big traffic point for a lot of people during rush hours. The Ford through the city and the Southfield can be thick at times too.

AAA routed me from southbound I-75 to I-94 to Southfield back onto I-75 to avoid the I-75 construction.

It's been a while since I've been there so I can't comment on current conditions, but I estimate that when I moved from Michigan to Arizona in '01, my blood pressure dropped 20 points due to the difference in driving.

Michigan just has too darn many traffic lights, and all mistimed. Every third of a mile it's another red light. Here they're still a mile or at least a half a mile apart, and usually timed well so that you get several greens in a row. Of course, our red lights do last for insanely long periods of time, so perhaps it evens out.

I remember seeing the local traffic evolve as I grew up. When I was a little kid, riding with my parents to Eastland on northbound Beaconsfield in Harper Woods, there was nothing from Moross to Eastland except for one stop sign at Eastwood. Now there are at least two or three traffic lights [[if I remember correctly).

Then there is Van Dyke from 11 to 16 mile. I worked at SHAP in Chrysler from '84 to '01, and when I first started, there was a traffic light at every mile road. Over those years, though, every time a new business or hotel opened, another traffic light came with it. By the time I left, you couldn't make it through that stretch without either 1) Gunning the accelerator to 9 over the limit immediately after the light changed to green or 2) resigning yourself to stop every third of a mile for another red light over the course of those 5 miles.

2 guesses as to which option I took! :D

I do agree with you on LA though. I just got back from a vacation there, and while it was a nice place to visit, I feel no need to go back again, ever. That was, hands down, the most insane place for driving that I have ever been, and that includes Chicago AND Boston and its roundabouts. There are two possible conditions of traffic in LA: 1) jammed and at a standstill or 2) insanely fast for the conditions, I guess as drivers try to make up for the time spent under condition 1).

I drive from Little Mack and 94 to 696 and Dequinder for work every day. For the past month, they have been randomly closing an extra lane or two at Mound on 696 and a lane or two on 696 between gratiot and groesbeck. So my ride to work can take 20 minutes or it can take 40 minutes. Problem is, there's no warning on what days and when they will closing lanes, so I don't know until I get there. We won't even talk about how the 696 side of the 94\696 interchange is one big pot hole and would be smoother as a dirt road.

I ride the Jeffries or the Lodge daily, just not during peak hours, and never have a problem. Both, after 8 pm, are really light. After midnight, no one is on those freeways, probably cuz there's no third shift.

Raptor56, I'm your neighbor down at 11 Mile & I-696 and the interchange roadway really is a shithole. I've had 3 non-repairable tire punctures in the last 2 years that I attribute to that interchange, especially the 1/4 cloverleaf that you mercifully don't have to worry about.

It's what got me cheesed off about those "frivolous" mile markers every 2 tenths of a mile on I-94. Money that would have been better spent on the entrance/exit ramps for 9, 10, 11 and 12 Mile. Lucky for you, you have nice new ramps at Little Mack & I-94, but that luck runs out quickly when you get to I-696.

With all the work that they are doing on the bridges there, you think that roadway closures would have included roadway repair... but I bet that will be a separate closure... so that the state can further inconvenience us in the future... :mad: