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Comment by farnsworth | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, it's practically impossible to work at Microsoft and live in Ballard without driving every day, unless you want to spend (probably more than?) an hour on the bus each way. And even driving is going to be pretty slow.

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Ballard -> Redmond has gotta be 45 minutes by car at the BEST of times. I'd think it'd be closer to 90min by bus at rush hour. 520 is an unmitigated traffic disaster (granted, I haven't been on it since the tolling began).

When I lived in the area I often joked I'd drive 405-90-5 if I was going from Kirkland to the U-District. Having spent 2 hours in traffic on the bridge alone in the past, it's not far from the truth.

IIRC, one of the main complaints from boeing is that the traffic situation is disastrous for their JIT parts deliveries and have threatened to pull out of Seattle b/c of that (not just the HQ, as they did a few years ago).

If you take the Ballard Connector to MSFT it is not that bad. 45-60 minutes depending on traffic. With the new 520 work on the Eastside, the carpool lanes are speeding things up dramatically and I expect it's closer to 45 most days (I'm in Phinney currently, and I'm usually at 45-50 minutes on the last stop).

If you're doing the counter commute, Kirkland->Seattle Business District in the morning, 520 is a great option. Most people have abandoned it due to the toll, but the only area where things get sticky is the merge from 405->520 where you need to merge left twice in short order and then merge left again directly after the Burgermaster exit. The merge across I5 to the Union exit is annoying since the backup for the Mercer exit (and people that never realized the needed to take Mercer) extends almost to 520, but if you wait in the third lane from left until you pass Mercer, you can usually merge gracefully right and take Union.

The return commute is only screwy when there's a big con - SakuraCon for example.

I did take Mercer for the three months I worked at Lab 126 in Fiona, but I assume it's better now that construction is over. It was much worse.

Counter-commute? or reverse commute? Shouldn't Kirkland->Seattle still be the 'normal' commute direction?

I apologize, I missed your comment earlier. In my experience (before the tolls were in place on 520 to mess with things), the morning commute was heavy from Seattle->Microsoft exit. There was a lot less traffic going from Kirkland->Seattle. Once the tolls were in place, people went to the I90 bridge and amplified this. Over the several years I was driving in every day, backups on 520 from Seattle->eastside in the morning seemed to be an every day thing; on the commute home, the worst part was the 5 north -> 520 merge. Everyone going south on 5 wants to take the university exit, so they're all stopping in the left lane trying to merge in, while everyone from 5 north wants to get on the bridge and wants to merge into the left hand lane. Once you got past that little knot, it was usually clear sailing until you got on 405. I could see everyone sitting on 520 westbound waiting for the neck down from three to two lanes before speed picked up.

I take it you haven't driven 405 through downtown Bellevue in a while? (or for that matter 405 northbound for the reverse trip...) It's gotten really nasty from my experience.

520 eastbound has mostly not been bad since ramp metering started, and even better since tolling started. Westbound is a bit of a different thing, though my impression is that it clears up much earlier now than it used to.

Well, yeah, there's that. Downtown Bellevue -> I-90 has been a parking lot for ages. Even in the late 90s when I last lived there. Even at 3pm. Always 10min to go 3mi.

Fingers crossed; that might get be about to get better when the new 520 bridge opens, since it has an HOV lane for the busses. The busses won't be stuck in traffic with everyone else and it might even cause more people to take them.

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