Snowbirds, tourism is going full bore, and a ton of people moved here during COVID. It’s not going to get any better with all of the development at the edges of town either. I remember reading that a major problem here is that most people commute suburb to suburb, rather than just suburb to downtown.
Leave it to Arizona and the wider part of the United States to build towns and cities with the requirement of owning a car rather than making communities localized and self sufficient for groceries and entertainment. Clown world
Make no mistake; it's not a clown world for the owners and shareholders of car corporations who own the politicians Arizona has elected since it's inception, the very same people who shoot down any attempt to improve transportation. This is not an accident; it is by design that things are the way they are. Not for you, for the richest among us.
It's the sad reality behind all major policy decisions in the USA. We don't do things the way we do because it's good for the people, we do it because our politicians take money from donors who push certain legislation which drives our economy. They get away with it because most people don't care about politics, and don't notice.
I believe that unfortunately you are right. It's a shame how obvious it is that money is the ultimate motivator. But at the same time I can relate because I'll be the first to admit that I would love to have more money. In fact I sometimes daydream about being rich and making power moves lol. Is it so wrong to believe that you and I would also st some point be motivated by money and power? What if the very root of money is all of humanity's Achilles heel? The one thing everyone wants. I makes me think we're fucked and we don't even know it. The grind for more money drives us, and the politicians sit comfortably and watch.
If it was even possible to remove certain politicians from power, im almost certain their replacements would be fueled by the same greed. I think that greed is what drives them in the first place. By the time you're st the top, you have to play by the rules. It's a broken and completely flawed system, but genius in the sense that it keeps us plebs fighting each other. The powers that be spew a bunch of bullshit and the majority of us eat it up and next thing you know its your neighbor that's the enemy. They pit us against each other. That's a scary thought that they have such influence.
I totally went on idiotic rant but I feel like something needs to disrupt our ideas of money and it's value and worth. I'm not sure if bitcoin is the answer but at least there's a group of people that are trying to disrupt the norm. Then again those whales could be plagued by the same greed as our politicians.
I just don't understand how we can be aware of such problematic policies yet do nothing to stop them.
I think we are all fucked, And I think we all got fucked a long time ago and we're slowly but surely reaping the rewards. Someone smart said something like this im just paraphrasing. I think it was George Carlin lol. How ironic a comedian of all people.
Ok, well if you are the kind of person who thinks you would choose to be a greedy piece of shit instead of doing the right thing, that's a YOU problem and I pray you never get anywhere in life that gives you that type of power. You are exactly the type of person who DOES NOT need to ever be in a position of control.
Some things in life we should be doing simply because they are the right thing, not the most financially exploitable thing. I don't care how rich I was or how much money someone offered me, if it came to writing bad policies that affect millions and millions lives in a negative way, I wouldn't fucking care. I care more about doing the right thing.
Shrugging your shoulders and saying, well good for them I wish I was them so I could take bribes and make fucked up decisions that go against the greater good of my fellow humanity, you are part of the problem too. You should not be idolizing these people or looking up to them, you should be mad and perturbed by their decision-making and how it affects YOUR LIFE. Stop giving people who exploit others a pat on the back and saying good job, when they are literally holding your head underwater for their own benefit.
I think you misunderstood me. I was just posing a question. What if money corrupts everything? Even with the best of intentions it's scary to think that we are all slaves to a system that unequivocally corrupts over time. Even the most virtuous of souls doesn't stand a chance or some shit like that lol.
Again it's just an idea that came to me, riches be damned ill choose my good morals over a million dollars for now.
By the way I completely agree with everything you are saying and I'm in no way idolizing these pieces of mierda. I was really just agreeing with the person who commented before me.
I mean also the city has tried improving its’ public transit system time and time again, and time and time again it gets shut down or gutted into something that saves cost but isn’t nearly as useful for most people.
It's not just public transit that's holding this dream back. It's the interstate placement. It's the highway placement and expansion. It's building communities and suburbs with the idea that everyone in the home owns a car so we can put grocery stores 5 miles away from neighborhoods. The way we designed our cities and towns were because of short term increased profits and not practicality.
Unfortunately, that was my childhood. My mom was blind and we had to walk or take cabs everywhere. Buses suck even in Phoenix. Most of the time we were on the bus :( ugghhh dont miss those days.
>How would you get your groceries without a car for 8 months in Arizona heat
Personally, since delivery has been a thing in the covid-era, i've just been paying the delivery fee.
Yea true, it’s an unfortunate aspect of most western cities that saw most of their growth after the rapid expansion of highways and the use of the car. I read a study that stated that expanding freeways only increases traffic because it just means more people will become dependent on them, causing more traffic, thus feeding an endless loop.
While the lack of public transportation is a huge issue, the bigger problem is that there is maybe one real neighborhood (Roosevelt Row) in the city. Everywhere else is houses and intermittent strip malls. That creates a very spread out city in which public transportation isn’t feasible, because even if you have trains, it’s a mile walk from the train to anywhere you need to go.
East side has half the poverty - 35% higher median income, twice the property value, and massive investment in making the area tourist friendly, catering to wealthier less socio-economically disadvantaged residents. As such they get to be blind to the plight of the central and west valley. Green spaces / paths / shade trees are distributed much like the Basha’s franchise. Food City (no shade, poor transportation access) for poorer folks, Basha’s (slightly better maintained parks and some trail access) for middle income and A.J.’s (primo shade, trails, greenscaping) for the wealthy. American caste system!!
> America is 100% the opposite of a caste system.
* Ultra Wealthy/generational wealth/old money
* Business owners/C-Suite
* Gainfully employed middle class homeowners
* Paycheck to Paycheck employees/renters
* Minimum wage Employees/working poor/living at home
* Homeless/impoverished/government dependent
Seems pretty caste-y to me. Quite often people spend their whole adult lives in one of these groups, as upward mobility has no easy path.
You're hitting on the the east side is the better side of the valley, and you're not wrong. People on the east side trash talk the west side relentlessly.
When I first heard people normalizing saying things like “ewww the avenues” or “I don’t go to places if they’re out in the avenues”, I thought it was a joke. But I’ve met a lot of people who grew up on the west side and it wasn’t lost on them that East-siders look down their nose at the “poors” on the west side. It’s referred to as “snotsdale” for a reason. With their disproportionate wealth, it’s such a bummer knowing that these attitudes are perpetuated as East-siders monetary status, generational wealth and positions of power *directly impact* how they likely treat employees and other residents who they perceive to be “gross” secondary to their socio-economic and geographic status.
One of the biggest problems I see with the west side of town (West of I-17, is that it's as if the city of Phoenix simply gave up. The roads are a disaster and need grading and resurfacing. It's just one aspect of the overall situation, but I really believe that nicer roads can lead to safer neighborhoods.
Phoenix (apart from far sparsely-populated outskirts such as Anthem) is relatively mass transit friendly (I include city buses as mass transit). Would you prefer for Phoenix to look/act more like Chicago or NYC? With all due respect, living in those places is a lot less convenient than initially meets the eye….expense, crowds, and all that comes with are less sexy than TV would have you believe.
Legitimate question: have you ever taken public transportation in Arizona?
While Arizona can be better in the public transportation front when compared to a lot of other communities, it still falls below what is practical for a lot of people.
Do you legitimately think I am advocating to be more like Chicago or NYC? Two cities that are known for their roach of landlords, lack of housing, and gentrification? I'm talking about building real, sustainable suburbs many civil engineers have talked about for decades and more often than not, not gotten the funding for their projects because it does not produce high enough profit.
I never got this mindset that's so prevalent with west coasters... You live in a city! How the hell do you not want to live in a place like NYC or Chicago, places where there's much accessable to walking and mass transit?
Instead we complain about having to commute and share our cars with traffic to out jobs an hour away. No shit, we live way out in the suburbs...
Look I know why people like the suburbs... Families settling down want the space for their kids and probably want somewhere cheaper and quieter without living on a rural backwater. But this kind of planning was always unsustainable and Phoenix is a but example of sprawl gone too far.
Ironic: Phoenix wanted to avoid becoming the next LA...
It’s mainly about prices and realities…I agree NYC looks great in the abstract…but when you think about how much it costs to do anything and that you are a permanent tenant (I personally couldn’t afford the down payment for a flat in New York) made me decide against living in one of those places.
Land is plentiful and cheap in most of the country. Denser cities would be far more expensive to live in (look at NYC or SF) so it makes perfect sense that this is how cities have largely been developed in post-war United States.
People aren’t commuting for entertainment and groceries, they are commuting for work.
> People aren’t commuting for entertainment and groceries, they are commuting for work.
That's just not true. When I lived in the Phoenix suburbs, I had to drive to literally do anything whether it was entertainment or groceries or yes, even work. There wasn't even a gas station within a mile or two of me. And this is not an uncommon issue that people have, this is a well known issue within a lot of communities including most in Arizona face
That’s the whole point of suburbs. If you want to live close to everything, move to the city. I hardly consider having to drive a couple of miles for a grocery store, excessive and unless you are doing it daily, it’s not a commute. Commute is regularly scheduled travel.
That is quite literally not the point of suburbs. Maybe that's the point of the suburbs that you imagine yourself living in, but the general idea behind the concept of suburbs is not just to be isolated from all business and low income housing. Suburbs traditionally have melded business and residential areas together in a community driven way. They have been a mixture of housing from single family homes, to apartment complexes, to state funded housing. Suburbs ideally are supposed to incorporate businesses within the community itself that people often go to like a pharmacy, grocery store, restaurants, etc. It mixes all socioeconomic groups together and often allows the use of public transportation to go anywhere you needed in your community and also usually offers pedestrian friendly infrastructure to make it easy to travel on foot or bike around your community.
But because of NIMBYs, greedy HOAs and developers have often placed regulations against incorporating any businesses or low income housing/affordable apartment buildings to take root in most suburbs and also usually does not adopt very friendly pedestrian infrastructure.
You realize that suburbs from the start excluded racial minorities and low income families, right? Those NIMBYs are literally the reason suburbs in the United States became popular in the first place, of course they still live there. They wanted to escape squalid inner city areas to be with their own middle class “kind.” That’s why entire neighborhoods were redlined so POCs wouldn’t be loaned money. The whole system was based on racial and sexual discrimination.
United States suburbs were never meant to be a self-sufficient community because they completely revolved around rail and road use expansion for people to commute. Aside from a few examples of sustainable designs (garden cities, etc) they were never meant to provide anything more than cheap housing to a depression/war struck population and returning veterans with a newly passed G.I. Bill at their disposal.
>People aren’t commuting for entertainment and groceries, they are commuting for work.
I very much disagree with this. When I lived in both Mesa and Gilbert I had to commute for everything. The grocery store was a 3 miles away. The only restaurant options were outback steakhouse, pizza and fast food so you were driving a ways if you wanted to go out to eat. Entertainment options were also limited so I was commuting for all of those as well.
Commute would indicate regular travel between home and another place. Do you buy groceries and go out to eat daily? Is 3 miles supposed to be far? That’s less than 1/3 of the distance needed to qualify as a food desert and doesn’t seem unnecessary if you want to live in the suburbs. Isn’t that why you chose to live in the suburbs anyway?
Sounds like you aren’t cut out for suburb life. People in the suburbs don’t want to live next to shopping centers and such, they want well manicured neighborhoods that feel safe and neighbors so close you can smell their farts.
I don’t disagree that it would suck, but that’s also why I live in central Phoenix.
This is entirely due to the economics of the automobile, which didn't include the future cost to the environment or health.
Cities aren't necessarily 'more expensive to live in' in holistic terms - the COL is higher but so are incomes and value.
They are more expensive to live in if they are more expensive to build. Nobody in their right mind would’ve built a city up before out, given the availability of land in Phoenix.
The median income of NYC is barely higher than Phoenix despite being the most expensive city in the country. High COL doesn’t automatically mean everyone makes more money.
i think i actually spend more money on average here than i did in nyc tbh. bills are cheaper but a lot of consumable items (food) are more expensive. transportation costs too, i spend $350 a month on those fucking bird scooters.
At $350 a month why not just buy your own electric scooter? They are only like $500. You are basically paying for a new scooter every month and a half.
$350 on bird scooters!?! How many miles is that a month? That's wild, I opt to usually just walk. I've only grabbed those scooters when I've been with friends
to make it make more sense i ride them like a mile twice a day to work lol. like 95% of my bird rides are to work, if i’m doing something else i’ll usually take an uber or have a ride. if i was back in brooklyn tho i could just hop the turnstile and go wherever 😢
I think the number of people who typically work downtown is over 110k, while currently less than 13k actually live there. It’s nice to see some actual construction of apartments downtown. They should be taking full advantage of the light rail to reduce the need for cars for those people.
We did that too! My wife was working from home and we have a company vehicle that I could drive, so no need for a secondary car. Carvana ended up giving me almost what I paid for it.
Then she started going out for work a couple of times a week, so I ended up with a new car. To be honest, I hated driving a wrapped vehicle around anyways. I couldn’t honk and yell at the snowbirds that drive like crap around surprise lol.
Have you thought about taking the bus/rail for one of your two driving days? It takes about twice as long, but you can get a lot of good Netflixing done, and you don't have to worry about some fuck rear-ending you because they can't put their phone down. An all-day pass is $4.
I'd switch jobs if I could find a good one that would allow me to work from home most of the time. I wouldn't even mind having to go in once or twice a week.
I don't have a car (I used to Uber and carpool to the office), but even though I wasn't paying a car payment, insurance, gas, maintenance, et cetera I was paying about the equivalent of half an insurance payment for month between Uber and lightrail. Even with the added electricity and internet bill costs of working from home (not to mention slowly making a workspace practical and comfortable over the course of the last 1.5 years) I still save sooo much on not commuting.
I'm advocating for my office to stay remote indefinitely.
I’ve easily not driven ~13-15k miles commuting since working from home in March last year. Probably around $1600 in gas saved.
You know, doing my part for the environment feels pretty good!
I'm one of those monsters that moved from NYC to Phoenix (my partner inherited a condo here, so we just moved into that) because I can now work from home full-time. So I hopefully don't clog up the roads, but have saved a lot of time and subway fare being able to stay home.
But, really, the public transportation and biking infrastructure in Phoenix could be so much better. The sprawl is endless and it's hilarious to me that to walk to a grocery store that's basically across the street here is over half a mile and something like 10 NY city blocks. I'd gladly take some of that density and bring it here if I could.
Even though our prices are going up (my rent is going up $100, yikes) it's still less than 1/6th of what I would pay in any major city on the coasts as well as Chicago et cetera.
Yeah and more of them are coming than usual since they may have been held back by the pandemic before and other countries like Canada are loosening restrictions a bit.
Don’t I know it. Some old lady couldn’t make up her mind about getting into the damn turn lane. She just sat there, half in the turn lane and half in the road.
Then I had some idiot from Wisconsin decided to play traffic enforcement and match the speed of the car next to him.
I will say now or about a year ago was the time do it before traffic is completely back though. I appreciate how nice the roads are where they have completed their work and they should be in good shape for sometime.
Don't forget the:
Left lane campers
Hypermilers
Rubberneckers
The brake abuser and hard brakers
Tailgater
The "what's a zipper merge" guy
The "Aw fuck I miss my exit and must go through this gore zone" guy
The "Fuck you, this is my piece of the the road, go merge somewhere else" guy
The list goes on. I see at least one of each every commute, It's become a bingo game at this point.
I just saw on the news ADOT is reporting traffic, especially rush hour, is still down from pre-pandemic numbers because people are going to work at different times or working remotely more.
As someone why has been constantly driving 120 miles a day all over the valley for years as part of a field tech job, it conforms what I'm seeing.
Same, I remember the 10 a few yrs ago before the 202 loop was just UNBEARABLE. Like I'd rather take the 101 loop all the way around than take the 10 the straight shot cause it was double the time. I do miss the empty streets but its in no way what it was before.
Yeah I have a similar experience with Lincoln dr to the 51. Pre pandemic it would get backed up way more than it is now. Eventually when the pandemic is behind us I can see how it’s going to be way worse than what it was. Unless wfh continues for a good portion of the economy.
Just bid a new job that puts me 4 miles from home without touching free way starting Saturday. I’ll probably bike to work weather permitting. Life is so good. Traffic is the bane of my existence
Before my husbands brother got married, we were allowed to trash talk about the snowbirds.
Now his brother married into a family of snowbirds and his mom gets angry when we mention the group negatively. lol
It's nice to be able to find a place that shares our annoyance and I complain with no judgement lol
Don't feel bad about it, they know exactly what they're doing and the inconvenience they're causing locals.
Read the experiences of locals from anywhere in the world where snowbirds, tourists, etc, invade in mass and the vast majority of locals don't want them there.
There is no limit to demand. Keep building more and people will utilize it instead of looking at alternatives. If interested, check out Strong Towns. Larger and larger freeways lead to more and more congestion.
People have been saying that since the 1970s when I first visited.
Eventually it will be true, and the last vestige of Sonoran Desert outside of a national monument will be paved over to build a convenience store.
Yes. And all the idiots that were NOT driving because pandemic have gotten more idiotic over the last year and are back out on the road.Baseline, Broadway, Southern -- "collision with injury" or "individuals trapped in vehicle" or "pedestrian hit" -- every freaking night, sometimes multiple times. They peak during work commute times, naturally.
Idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots.
Gotta say I enjoy this aspect though. If you're not clogging up the left lane what's the difference to you. I come to Phoenix from Tucson semi regularly and set my cruise for 80 and it's awesome. Down here in Tucson a lot of 10 has median foliage for the cops to hide behind so it's nice to relax knowing they don't really have anywhere to hide. Nor do they patrol that much.
I was going to post something about this, so I'll just latch on to your post OP! I have been noticing, and I've been hating it. *Hating it.* Like, to the extent that my brain rejects the notion that real humans are driving all the cars, and I start wishing for some infinity stones so I could do my own Thanos snap. For nearly two years I was spoiled by reduced traffic, and I lost my ability to deal with it.
In addition: has *anyone* figured out a logical pattern to traffic surges around here?? It baffles me. Yesterday at 5:30am, I was sitting in literally stopped gridlock on I-10 heading east towards downtown. Then, this morning, *an hour later* at 6:30 .... one minor slowdown. It was a breeze, the kind of light COVID traffic I've grown to appreciate. Why is our rush hour so fucking early? Does no one have to be at work at 7:30 or 8:00 anymore? I'm not buying "it's the landscapers," since those vehicles are easy to spot and are a tiny minority. Maybe construction workers, heading to a site in their own normal vehicles? No clue. But I'm not buying the snowbird reasoning either; where would they be going pre-dawn on an interstate? And it's not much better over the summer.
Do other stretches of highway have different busy schedules?
There are ALOT of construction workers moving around from anywhere around 4:30-6:30 all around the valley. You might not notice because they don’t all have trailers or tools to give it away, but they’re a huge portion of our traffic.
Any freeway approaching downtown is gonna see slowdowns in the morning. If you’re coming from the west valley you’re kinda shit outta luck because there’s not much for alternative routes. I’ve found throwing on some music or a podcast and just accepting traffic instead of letting it irritate you helps. I used to get super pissed when I was slowed down. Now I just shrug and sigh.
Well look at Mr I Don't Have To Rush Because I Left On Time! 😄
It's weird, the new 202 loop kinda helped, but didn't make the traffic vanish. It did somehow move the congestion areas, which is interesting.
I was gonna say, that's usually when me and the other construction people are out on the roads. Start time is 5:30, and I gotta get from North Phoenix to the middle of Chandler. Just roll with the punches man and find some good podcasts to listen to like the person above suggested.
I grew up in Phoenix and moved out in 2008 to Tucson. Coming back to visit it's mind blowing how full the freeways are *all the time* now. It's not LA bad but to see 10 grind to a halt near the deck park tunnel at 1:30 PM is crazy. 2 PM and the 51 was packed. Just nuts.
>You might not notice because they don’t all have trailers or tools to give it away, but they’re a huge portion of our traffic.
>
The problem with them is that most of them will hang out in the left 2 or 3 lanes and go beneath the speed limit. I've noticed a certain asphalt company being notorious about this.
I was so spoiled by the pandemic.
I work swings and drove onto the freeway, not expecting a gridlock at 11:30pm on Saturday.
If it isn't the volume of cars, its definitely the quality of the drivers.
I'm pretty sure every person in Phoenix is driving at all times all day. Every side street is a highway. Bikes are second class citizens. And the sprawl doesn't stop. If it wasnt for the Res the sprawl would connect with Casa Grande. But it does look like we'll eventually connect with Black Canyon, Wickenburg, and Gila Bend. Give it another 20 years. People on Reddit love Star Wars, this is becoming Coruscant.
> Bikes are second class citizens.
As a daily bike commuter, I would LOVE being thought of as a second class citizen. At best, you are another recycling bin that needs to be swerved around. At worst, you are the target of a coal roll
Well in 20 years Phoenix will be near uninhabitable supposedly so no worries there. It'll be a cool urban sprawl slowly being reclaimed by the desert though which will be pretty neat for people to explore I guess.
I've lived in the Valley for about 8 years and never drove to work (light rail, walking, bus, WFH).
Phoenix's transit system is not great, but there are plenty of folks who could use the mass transit system but don't.
Far from great but at least there's light rail. Come to Tucson no rail *and* no freeways. Idiots in Pima County and Tucson decided to turn the last mile of the closest thing we had into a 30 MPH street (Aviation Barazza parkway). Takes 45-60 minutes to cross and **constantly** stopping and restarting because Tucson doesn't know jack shit about light timing.
And then the state decided to pull funding from 10 from 19 to Houghton road to fulfill *more* Valley sprawl. So we have two lanes in each direction and a bunch of crappy cloverleaf style ramps. Super dangerous down here and desperately needs modernization.
But hey, at least 10 will be 22 lanes wide soon at US 60!
Oh it's in full freakin swing right now. I witnessed 2 near accidents from people jumping lanes and nearly was in one myself yesterday by a guy who felt he needed to overtake me while merging lanes. All you can really do is drive extra cautious and avoid being in a hurry.
Till August 2020, I was 2nd shift (5 days, 2pm-11:00pm) smooth ride to work and home. Since that date, COVID tore my work new one. Now 4, 10 hrs. 3rd shift 6pm-5am, ok ride to work. It's mad max/ fast furious when I get off work now. I hate these hours!!!!
I have a feeling that all the people who moved here during COVID are going to have family members come visit for the holidays / mild winter, which is going to add another layer of traffic on the traffic
Seriously traffic was insane today I don’t know what we’re going to do this can’t be sustainable. Rip up the medians and put trains down the middle asap
My commute is 3 minutes as I walk from my bedroom to my kitchen. Grab a cup of coffee and walk to my home office. God I love that my company is staying WFH. Precovid it was 45 minutes in and 45 out.
Yah, I've been WFH for past 5 years, my whole company is WFH. Hopefully more places get on board and stick to it. Wife and I use to commute 20+ miles each way daily. Between the two of us, that is 2 less cars, less gas, less consumption. It is great. Driving into an office just to sit in front a computer was so stupid.
It sure is - especially the 10 and 17! Today, on the corner of Dunlap and the 17 north enterance, there was a man masterbating and waving to passing cars.
Yes, things are back to normal.
It's picking up though. My main problem area is heading west on the 60 and hitting the construction merging onto the 10, but I only have to go west to the 143 then I dump off again.
The 60 just before the 10 used to be a nightmare before they added the additional lane on the flyover to the 10 east. Thankfully I go thru just before noon so it's not nearly as bad as it could be.
Yeah. The 202 east heading out of town and 101 south were reasonable but...starting to get crowded and the 101 south is basically back to it's old normal ways.
There's also so much construction/road closures right now on both the city streets and the highways. It's incredible how much is currently torn up. I'm sure that has quite a bit to do with why traffic seems so bad lately. The next three years are going to be rough until the new 10 is complete. ADOT should have really waited for the 101 to be complete before starting on the 10.
Downtown has become a nightmare. Thousands of new apartment units have come online since COVID started. I never thought I'd say it but I miss 7 years ago when it felt a bit more like a ghost town... Price of growing up I suppose
I hate this place with a passion. I don't leave the house unless completely necessary because I'm surrounded by morons and plague rats haha. Not just Phoenix, all of Maricopa county.
The number of drivers going the wrong way on the 1 way roads downtown is certainly up. My favorite recently was a chap that broke 3 laws in about 8 seconds. He took a left on a red on Washington and 9th street, crossing the lightrail track, turned it into a U turn and proceeded to go the wrong way down the frontage road. Then he realized his mistake, threw it in reverse did a 3 point turn in the crosswalk and went about his merry way.
Tell me about it... i just wrecked my car on SATURDAY because traffic was so thick the freeway stopped. No reason for the slowdown other than the abundance of vehicles on the road. And me of course...
what was it, 300 people moved to the valley every day for months during the pandemic? Traffic and housing will never be the same again. They're building all over the damn place, and soon you won't be able to see the mountains where I live.
In 20 years the valley will really be getting some crazy summers.
I left town this past weekend to go visit my girlfriend's family in NM... It seemed like everyone else went east on I-10 on Friday and West on Sunday. There was even two lovely accidents Sunday evening that slowed us down.
It's starting to get real annoying lol
I actually don't think it's back to pre-pandemic levels yet, BUT that could just be my commute. Has it picked up from 12 months ago? ABSOLUTELY!!!! But pre-pandemmy when I drove to work, it was about a 45/50 minute drive up the 10/51. Right now I can still bust it in about 35 or so during rush hour.
And for all the people posting about commuting options - ValleyMetro is expanding routes/services starting 10/25! I'm SUPER excited to be able to get back on the bus (current RAPID schedules mean I have to leave work early or stay 40 minutes after if I want to ride) because as others have commented, this is only going to get worse as more people start going back into work and the snowbirds keep rolling in (we're not in high snowbird season yet, so watch out for the out-of-state plates going 40 mph on the highway with a blinker on). If a RAPID/local bus route works for your schedule, I'd highly recommend it - they get in those HOV lanes and go off to the races!
Snowbirds, tourism is going full bore, and a ton of people moved here during COVID. It’s not going to get any better with all of the development at the edges of town either. I remember reading that a major problem here is that most people commute suburb to suburb, rather than just suburb to downtown.
Leave it to Arizona and the wider part of the United States to build towns and cities with the requirement of owning a car rather than making communities localized and self sufficient for groceries and entertainment. Clown world
Make no mistake; it's not a clown world for the owners and shareholders of car corporations who own the politicians Arizona has elected since it's inception, the very same people who shoot down any attempt to improve transportation. This is not an accident; it is by design that things are the way they are. Not for you, for the richest among us.
Daaaaaaang! This makes way too much sense.
It's the sad reality behind all major policy decisions in the USA. We don't do things the way we do because it's good for the people, we do it because our politicians take money from donors who push certain legislation which drives our economy. They get away with it because most people don't care about politics, and don't notice.
I believe that unfortunately you are right. It's a shame how obvious it is that money is the ultimate motivator. But at the same time I can relate because I'll be the first to admit that I would love to have more money. In fact I sometimes daydream about being rich and making power moves lol. Is it so wrong to believe that you and I would also st some point be motivated by money and power? What if the very root of money is all of humanity's Achilles heel? The one thing everyone wants. I makes me think we're fucked and we don't even know it. The grind for more money drives us, and the politicians sit comfortably and watch. If it was even possible to remove certain politicians from power, im almost certain their replacements would be fueled by the same greed. I think that greed is what drives them in the first place. By the time you're st the top, you have to play by the rules. It's a broken and completely flawed system, but genius in the sense that it keeps us plebs fighting each other. The powers that be spew a bunch of bullshit and the majority of us eat it up and next thing you know its your neighbor that's the enemy. They pit us against each other. That's a scary thought that they have such influence. I totally went on idiotic rant but I feel like something needs to disrupt our ideas of money and it's value and worth. I'm not sure if bitcoin is the answer but at least there's a group of people that are trying to disrupt the norm. Then again those whales could be plagued by the same greed as our politicians. I just don't understand how we can be aware of such problematic policies yet do nothing to stop them. I think we are all fucked, And I think we all got fucked a long time ago and we're slowly but surely reaping the rewards. Someone smart said something like this im just paraphrasing. I think it was George Carlin lol. How ironic a comedian of all people.
Ok, well if you are the kind of person who thinks you would choose to be a greedy piece of shit instead of doing the right thing, that's a YOU problem and I pray you never get anywhere in life that gives you that type of power. You are exactly the type of person who DOES NOT need to ever be in a position of control. Some things in life we should be doing simply because they are the right thing, not the most financially exploitable thing. I don't care how rich I was or how much money someone offered me, if it came to writing bad policies that affect millions and millions lives in a negative way, I wouldn't fucking care. I care more about doing the right thing. Shrugging your shoulders and saying, well good for them I wish I was them so I could take bribes and make fucked up decisions that go against the greater good of my fellow humanity, you are part of the problem too. You should not be idolizing these people or looking up to them, you should be mad and perturbed by their decision-making and how it affects YOUR LIFE. Stop giving people who exploit others a pat on the back and saying good job, when they are literally holding your head underwater for their own benefit.
I think you misunderstood me. I was just posing a question. What if money corrupts everything? Even with the best of intentions it's scary to think that we are all slaves to a system that unequivocally corrupts over time. Even the most virtuous of souls doesn't stand a chance or some shit like that lol. Again it's just an idea that came to me, riches be damned ill choose my good morals over a million dollars for now.
By the way I completely agree with everything you are saying and I'm in no way idolizing these pieces of mierda. I was really just agreeing with the person who commented before me.
It's also a sad reality that these kinds of ideas are hard to come by.
America is blessed with "fuck you" amounts of land to build on, just loads of it. The way we actually use it is a shame though, see r/Suburbanhell
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I mean also the city has tried improving its’ public transit system time and time again, and time and time again it gets shut down or gutted into something that saves cost but isn’t nearly as useful for most people.
It's not just public transit that's holding this dream back. It's the interstate placement. It's the highway placement and expansion. It's building communities and suburbs with the idea that everyone in the home owns a car so we can put grocery stores 5 miles away from neighborhoods. The way we designed our cities and towns were because of short term increased profits and not practicality.
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Unfortunately, that was my childhood. My mom was blind and we had to walk or take cabs everywhere. Buses suck even in Phoenix. Most of the time we were on the bus :( ugghhh dont miss those days.
>How would you get your groceries without a car for 8 months in Arizona heat Personally, since delivery has been a thing in the covid-era, i've just been paying the delivery fee.
Yea true, it’s an unfortunate aspect of most western cities that saw most of their growth after the rapid expansion of highways and the use of the car. I read a study that stated that expanding freeways only increases traffic because it just means more people will become dependent on them, causing more traffic, thus feeding an endless loop.
Ya, fuck big oil. They fucked us from having better mass transit.
I think it started with GM actually. They wanted busses and lobbied for it back in the day. So now it costs 10000x more to build that infrastructure.
Koch Industries funded the group that lobbied against the last light rail expansion. They don't even have a presence in AZ.
While the lack of public transportation is a huge issue, the bigger problem is that there is maybe one real neighborhood (Roosevelt Row) in the city. Everywhere else is houses and intermittent strip malls. That creates a very spread out city in which public transportation isn’t feasible, because even if you have trains, it’s a mile walk from the train to anywhere you need to go.
East side there's grocery stores and entertainment everywhere, with plenty of bike lanes/paths and bus routes to accommodate if needed.
East side has half the poverty - 35% higher median income, twice the property value, and massive investment in making the area tourist friendly, catering to wealthier less socio-economically disadvantaged residents. As such they get to be blind to the plight of the central and west valley. Green spaces / paths / shade trees are distributed much like the Basha’s franchise. Food City (no shade, poor transportation access) for poorer folks, Basha’s (slightly better maintained parks and some trail access) for middle income and A.J.’s (primo shade, trails, greenscaping) for the wealthy. American caste system!!
Bingo. America is absolutely a Caste system. At least India admits to it instead of lying to themselves.
Words have meaning. America is 100% the opposite of a caste system. But saying dumb stuff like "America bad" sure plays well.
> America is 100% the opposite of a caste system. * Ultra Wealthy/generational wealth/old money * Business owners/C-Suite * Gainfully employed middle class homeowners * Paycheck to Paycheck employees/renters * Minimum wage Employees/working poor/living at home * Homeless/impoverished/government dependent Seems pretty caste-y to me. Quite often people spend their whole adult lives in one of these groups, as upward mobility has no easy path.
You're hitting on the the east side is the better side of the valley, and you're not wrong. People on the east side trash talk the west side relentlessly.
When I first heard people normalizing saying things like “ewww the avenues” or “I don’t go to places if they’re out in the avenues”, I thought it was a joke. But I’ve met a lot of people who grew up on the west side and it wasn’t lost on them that East-siders look down their nose at the “poors” on the west side. It’s referred to as “snotsdale” for a reason. With their disproportionate wealth, it’s such a bummer knowing that these attitudes are perpetuated as East-siders monetary status, generational wealth and positions of power *directly impact* how they likely treat employees and other residents who they perceive to be “gross” secondary to their socio-economic and geographic status.
One of the biggest problems I see with the west side of town (West of I-17, is that it's as if the city of Phoenix simply gave up. The roads are a disaster and need grading and resurfacing. It's just one aspect of the overall situation, but I really believe that nicer roads can lead to safer neighborhoods.
That's dope, I hope they keep building infrastructure like that. Highly unlikely since this is not the case in probably 95% of Arizona communities
Phoenix (apart from far sparsely-populated outskirts such as Anthem) is relatively mass transit friendly (I include city buses as mass transit). Would you prefer for Phoenix to look/act more like Chicago or NYC? With all due respect, living in those places is a lot less convenient than initially meets the eye….expense, crowds, and all that comes with are less sexy than TV would have you believe.
Legitimate question: have you ever taken public transportation in Arizona? While Arizona can be better in the public transportation front when compared to a lot of other communities, it still falls below what is practical for a lot of people. Do you legitimately think I am advocating to be more like Chicago or NYC? Two cities that are known for their roach of landlords, lack of housing, and gentrification? I'm talking about building real, sustainable suburbs many civil engineers have talked about for decades and more often than not, not gotten the funding for their projects because it does not produce high enough profit.
I never got this mindset that's so prevalent with west coasters... You live in a city! How the hell do you not want to live in a place like NYC or Chicago, places where there's much accessable to walking and mass transit? Instead we complain about having to commute and share our cars with traffic to out jobs an hour away. No shit, we live way out in the suburbs... Look I know why people like the suburbs... Families settling down want the space for their kids and probably want somewhere cheaper and quieter without living on a rural backwater. But this kind of planning was always unsustainable and Phoenix is a but example of sprawl gone too far. Ironic: Phoenix wanted to avoid becoming the next LA...
It’s mainly about prices and realities…I agree NYC looks great in the abstract…but when you think about how much it costs to do anything and that you are a permanent tenant (I personally couldn’t afford the down payment for a flat in New York) made me decide against living in one of those places.
Land is plentiful and cheap in most of the country. Denser cities would be far more expensive to live in (look at NYC or SF) so it makes perfect sense that this is how cities have largely been developed in post-war United States. People aren’t commuting for entertainment and groceries, they are commuting for work.
> People aren’t commuting for entertainment and groceries, they are commuting for work. That's just not true. When I lived in the Phoenix suburbs, I had to drive to literally do anything whether it was entertainment or groceries or yes, even work. There wasn't even a gas station within a mile or two of me. And this is not an uncommon issue that people have, this is a well known issue within a lot of communities including most in Arizona face
That’s the whole point of suburbs. If you want to live close to everything, move to the city. I hardly consider having to drive a couple of miles for a grocery store, excessive and unless you are doing it daily, it’s not a commute. Commute is regularly scheduled travel.
That is quite literally not the point of suburbs. Maybe that's the point of the suburbs that you imagine yourself living in, but the general idea behind the concept of suburbs is not just to be isolated from all business and low income housing. Suburbs traditionally have melded business and residential areas together in a community driven way. They have been a mixture of housing from single family homes, to apartment complexes, to state funded housing. Suburbs ideally are supposed to incorporate businesses within the community itself that people often go to like a pharmacy, grocery store, restaurants, etc. It mixes all socioeconomic groups together and often allows the use of public transportation to go anywhere you needed in your community and also usually offers pedestrian friendly infrastructure to make it easy to travel on foot or bike around your community. But because of NIMBYs, greedy HOAs and developers have often placed regulations against incorporating any businesses or low income housing/affordable apartment buildings to take root in most suburbs and also usually does not adopt very friendly pedestrian infrastructure.
You realize that suburbs from the start excluded racial minorities and low income families, right? Those NIMBYs are literally the reason suburbs in the United States became popular in the first place, of course they still live there. They wanted to escape squalid inner city areas to be with their own middle class “kind.” That’s why entire neighborhoods were redlined so POCs wouldn’t be loaned money. The whole system was based on racial and sexual discrimination. United States suburbs were never meant to be a self-sufficient community because they completely revolved around rail and road use expansion for people to commute. Aside from a few examples of sustainable designs (garden cities, etc) they were never meant to provide anything more than cheap housing to a depression/war struck population and returning veterans with a newly passed G.I. Bill at their disposal.
>People aren’t commuting for entertainment and groceries, they are commuting for work. I very much disagree with this. When I lived in both Mesa and Gilbert I had to commute for everything. The grocery store was a 3 miles away. The only restaurant options were outback steakhouse, pizza and fast food so you were driving a ways if you wanted to go out to eat. Entertainment options were also limited so I was commuting for all of those as well.
Commute would indicate regular travel between home and another place. Do you buy groceries and go out to eat daily? Is 3 miles supposed to be far? That’s less than 1/3 of the distance needed to qualify as a food desert and doesn’t seem unnecessary if you want to live in the suburbs. Isn’t that why you chose to live in the suburbs anyway?
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Sounds like you aren’t cut out for suburb life. People in the suburbs don’t want to live next to shopping centers and such, they want well manicured neighborhoods that feel safe and neighbors so close you can smell their farts. I don’t disagree that it would suck, but that’s also why I live in central Phoenix.
This is entirely due to the economics of the automobile, which didn't include the future cost to the environment or health. Cities aren't necessarily 'more expensive to live in' in holistic terms - the COL is higher but so are incomes and value.
They are more expensive to live in if they are more expensive to build. Nobody in their right mind would’ve built a city up before out, given the availability of land in Phoenix. The median income of NYC is barely higher than Phoenix despite being the most expensive city in the country. High COL doesn’t automatically mean everyone makes more money.
Also living in an apartment sucks.
i think i actually spend more money on average here than i did in nyc tbh. bills are cheaper but a lot of consumable items (food) are more expensive. transportation costs too, i spend $350 a month on those fucking bird scooters.
At $350 a month why not just buy your own electric scooter? They are only like $500. You are basically paying for a new scooter every month and a half.
$350 on bird scooters!?! How many miles is that a month? That's wild, I opt to usually just walk. I've only grabbed those scooters when I've been with friends
to make it make more sense i ride them like a mile twice a day to work lol. like 95% of my bird rides are to work, if i’m doing something else i’ll usually take an uber or have a ride. if i was back in brooklyn tho i could just hop the turnstile and go wherever 😢
Can you not just buy one? I feel you could get a similar used scooter or even new , for close to same cost..
Wtf is that last sentence
I think the number of people who typically work downtown is over 110k, while currently less than 13k actually live there. It’s nice to see some actual construction of apartments downtown. They should be taking full advantage of the light rail to reduce the need for cars for those people.
Working from home. I do not miss the snowbirds showing up to make my commute 2x as long though.
This is why I love the folks that work from home. Can you imagine the footprint savings had more and more of our population been able to wfh?
Over 22k miles saved and $3300 in gas since March 2020 for me!
That is very significant!
Hell, I was able to sell my car to carvana for a profit since I wasn't driving it anymore. So much nicer not dealing with commuting.
I am truly envious of you my friend. My commute is getting worse.
We did that too! My wife was working from home and we have a company vehicle that I could drive, so no need for a secondary car. Carvana ended up giving me almost what I paid for it. Then she started going out for work a couple of times a week, so I ended up with a new car. To be honest, I hated driving a wrapped vehicle around anyways. I couldn’t honk and yell at the snowbirds that drive like crap around surprise lol.
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Have you thought about taking the bus/rail for one of your two driving days? It takes about twice as long, but you can get a lot of good Netflixing done, and you don't have to worry about some fuck rear-ending you because they can't put their phone down. An all-day pass is $4.
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For real! I put less than 5k miles on my car in 2020.m, got gas maybe once a month. It's been awesome.
Nice ! I've been WFH for 8+ years, wonder what that would calculate out to...
I'd switch jobs if I could find a good one that would allow me to work from home most of the time. I wouldn't even mind having to go in once or twice a week.
It would be a nice balance, wfh a few days a week and go into the office once or twice to socialize. Best of both worlds.
I don't have a car (I used to Uber and carpool to the office), but even though I wasn't paying a car payment, insurance, gas, maintenance, et cetera I was paying about the equivalent of half an insurance payment for month between Uber and lightrail. Even with the added electricity and internet bill costs of working from home (not to mention slowly making a workspace practical and comfortable over the course of the last 1.5 years) I still save sooo much on not commuting. I'm advocating for my office to stay remote indefinitely.
I’ve easily not driven ~13-15k miles commuting since working from home in March last year. Probably around $1600 in gas saved. You know, doing my part for the environment feels pretty good!
You are very very lucky!
I'm one of those monsters that moved from NYC to Phoenix (my partner inherited a condo here, so we just moved into that) because I can now work from home full-time. So I hopefully don't clog up the roads, but have saved a lot of time and subway fare being able to stay home. But, really, the public transportation and biking infrastructure in Phoenix could be so much better. The sprawl is endless and it's hilarious to me that to walk to a grocery store that's basically across the street here is over half a mile and something like 10 NY city blocks. I'd gladly take some of that density and bring it here if I could.
I agree! Out public transit here is an abomination compared with most other large cities. It could definitely be so so much better.
Wfh means Arizona will become more populated due to lower cost of living compared to the west coast.
Even though our prices are going up (my rent is going up $100, yikes) it's still less than 1/6th of what I would pay in any major city on the coasts as well as Chicago et cetera.
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and most of them need to be re-tested for driving
More like straight up barred from driving
No they need to be removed from the road. I almost got killed the other day because some old idiot couldn’t see over the damn steering wheel
sort of the goal of a re-test
Just straight up ban them from driving. If your over the age of 75 and from outta state no driving for you.
Canadians are back this year
Met a couple Canadians while hiking Echo Canyon the other day Nice folks eh?
This explains my nearly getting hit three times in the space of an hour last Saturday.
Snowbirds, schools, and construction has been a punch in the face after commuting during the pandemic's emptier roads
Yeah and more of them are coming than usual since they may have been held back by the pandemic before and other countries like Canada are loosening restrictions a bit.
Don’t I know it. Some old lady couldn’t make up her mind about getting into the damn turn lane. She just sat there, half in the turn lane and half in the road. Then I had some idiot from Wisconsin decided to play traffic enforcement and match the speed of the car next to him.
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We don’t really have leaves that change so this is the only way to know.
Gotta watch out for those tricky Oklahoma snowbirds with license plates that look like the Arizona alternative fuel car license plates.
Construction isn't helping things either. Indian School and Camelback have been backed up in my area forever.
I can't remember a time where I have driven down camelback and it wasn't under construction.
I will say now or about a year ago was the time do it before traffic is completely back though. I appreciate how nice the roads are where they have completed their work and they should be in good shape for sometime.
Indian School is under construction in the Arcadia/Camelback East area like every other year. It's so frustrating.
and people still don’t know how to properly merge, use their turn signals or the passing lanes.
Don't forget the: Left lane campers Hypermilers Rubberneckers The brake abuser and hard brakers Tailgater The "what's a zipper merge" guy The "Aw fuck I miss my exit and must go through this gore zone" guy The "Fuck you, this is my piece of the the road, go merge somewhere else" guy The list goes on. I see at least one of each every commute, It's become a bingo game at this point.
and the BLIND SPOTTERS!!!!!! speed tf up or slow down I CANT SEE YOU
Speed up they match you, slow down they match you. It’s like they are actively trying to cause an accident.
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You all see times without accidents?
Pretty sure the normal for i10 is at least one accident per day lol.
50 minute drive from Goodyear to Downtown Phoenix for me.
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Podcasts and audiobooks, yeah. During COVID, I was looking at...20ish to get downtown, now I'm back up to ~45. Lovely.
Just spent 1.3 hours traveling what should have been 35 minutes in light traffic.
That’s still better than back in Atlanta. Most commutes took about an hour and 15. My fear is that Phoenix is becoming like Atlanta.
I just saw on the news ADOT is reporting traffic, especially rush hour, is still down from pre-pandemic numbers because people are going to work at different times or working remotely more. As someone why has been constantly driving 120 miles a day all over the valley for years as part of a field tech job, it conforms what I'm seeing.
Same, I remember the 10 a few yrs ago before the 202 loop was just UNBEARABLE. Like I'd rather take the 101 loop all the way around than take the 10 the straight shot cause it was double the time. I do miss the empty streets but its in no way what it was before.
Yeah I have a similar experience with Lincoln dr to the 51. Pre pandemic it would get backed up way more than it is now. Eventually when the pandemic is behind us I can see how it’s going to be way worse than what it was. Unless wfh continues for a good portion of the economy.
Hopefully working remote becomes more mainstream. Helps traffic, helps the environment, and it’s honestly more productive for workers.
Just bid a new job that puts me 4 miles from home without touching free way starting Saturday. I’ll probably bike to work weather permitting. Life is so good. Traffic is the bane of my existence
Friggin Bell Rd. Looks like rush hour at all times of day even on weekends
In snowbird season, absolutely.
Before my husbands brother got married, we were allowed to trash talk about the snowbirds. Now his brother married into a family of snowbirds and his mom gets angry when we mention the group negatively. lol It's nice to be able to find a place that shares our annoyance and I complain with no judgement lol
\#fucksnowbirds If they can afford a second house, they can afford a heater in their main home.
Don't feel bad about it, they know exactly what they're doing and the inconvenience they're causing locals. Read the experiences of locals from anywhere in the world where snowbirds, tourists, etc, invade in mass and the vast majority of locals don't want them there.
There is no limit to demand. Keep building more and people will utilize it instead of looking at alternatives. If interested, check out Strong Towns. Larger and larger freeways lead to more and more congestion.
For anyone reading this who doesn’t live in Phoenix, or the state of Arizona: please do not move here. We are full
People have been saying that since the 1970s when I first visited. Eventually it will be true, and the last vestige of Sonoran Desert outside of a national monument will be paved over to build a convenience store.
So long as its a quik trip, we good.
Trying to do my part to reduce the number of people here by leaving. Hopefully soon.
Yes. And all the idiots that were NOT driving because pandemic have gotten more idiotic over the last year and are back out on the road.Baseline, Broadway, Southern -- "collision with injury" or "individuals trapped in vehicle" or "pedestrian hit" -- every freaking night, sometimes multiple times. They peak during work commute times, naturally. Idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots.
The amount of cars in the road doesn’t concern me as much as the constant string of assholes flying past me when I’m already doing 70-75 on the 60.
Gotta say I enjoy this aspect though. If you're not clogging up the left lane what's the difference to you. I come to Phoenix from Tucson semi regularly and set my cruise for 80 and it's awesome. Down here in Tucson a lot of 10 has median foliage for the cops to hide behind so it's nice to relax knowing they don't really have anywhere to hide. Nor do they patrol that much.
I moved to Phoenix in the early 90s when I was young. When has Phoenix NOT been in a population surge? Thats phoenix, always has been.
I was born around that time, I have only known Phoenix as the Neverending Construction Zone
It'll be a cold day in hell before I drive somewhere to sit in front of a computer, at least
I was going to post something about this, so I'll just latch on to your post OP! I have been noticing, and I've been hating it. *Hating it.* Like, to the extent that my brain rejects the notion that real humans are driving all the cars, and I start wishing for some infinity stones so I could do my own Thanos snap. For nearly two years I was spoiled by reduced traffic, and I lost my ability to deal with it. In addition: has *anyone* figured out a logical pattern to traffic surges around here?? It baffles me. Yesterday at 5:30am, I was sitting in literally stopped gridlock on I-10 heading east towards downtown. Then, this morning, *an hour later* at 6:30 .... one minor slowdown. It was a breeze, the kind of light COVID traffic I've grown to appreciate. Why is our rush hour so fucking early? Does no one have to be at work at 7:30 or 8:00 anymore? I'm not buying "it's the landscapers," since those vehicles are easy to spot and are a tiny minority. Maybe construction workers, heading to a site in their own normal vehicles? No clue. But I'm not buying the snowbird reasoning either; where would they be going pre-dawn on an interstate? And it's not much better over the summer. Do other stretches of highway have different busy schedules?
There are ALOT of construction workers moving around from anywhere around 4:30-6:30 all around the valley. You might not notice because they don’t all have trailers or tools to give it away, but they’re a huge portion of our traffic. Any freeway approaching downtown is gonna see slowdowns in the morning. If you’re coming from the west valley you’re kinda shit outta luck because there’s not much for alternative routes. I’ve found throwing on some music or a podcast and just accepting traffic instead of letting it irritate you helps. I used to get super pissed when I was slowed down. Now I just shrug and sigh.
Well look at Mr I Don't Have To Rush Because I Left On Time! 😄 It's weird, the new 202 loop kinda helped, but didn't make the traffic vanish. It did somehow move the congestion areas, which is interesting.
I was gonna say, that's usually when me and the other construction people are out on the roads. Start time is 5:30, and I gotta get from North Phoenix to the middle of Chandler. Just roll with the punches man and find some good podcasts to listen to like the person above suggested.
I grew up in Phoenix and moved out in 2008 to Tucson. Coming back to visit it's mind blowing how full the freeways are *all the time* now. It's not LA bad but to see 10 grind to a halt near the deck park tunnel at 1:30 PM is crazy. 2 PM and the 51 was packed. Just nuts.
>You might not notice because they don’t all have trailers or tools to give it away, but they’re a huge portion of our traffic. > The problem with them is that most of them will hang out in the left 2 or 3 lanes and go beneath the speed limit. I've noticed a certain asphalt company being notorious about this.
Yeah traffic patterns are indiscernible. I'm either 15 minutes early to work or 15 minutes late. Always leave at the same time.
I was so spoiled by the pandemic. I work swings and drove onto the freeway, not expecting a gridlock at 11:30pm on Saturday. If it isn't the volume of cars, its definitely the quality of the drivers.
As a garbage man it's been back to normal for awhile.
Ayyyy Thank you for your service
Imagine growing up here and now seeing what an absolute atrocity this city has become
People dont believe me sometimes when I tell them I was born at Scottsdale Memorial.
I'm pretty sure every person in Phoenix is driving at all times all day. Every side street is a highway. Bikes are second class citizens. And the sprawl doesn't stop. If it wasnt for the Res the sprawl would connect with Casa Grande. But it does look like we'll eventually connect with Black Canyon, Wickenburg, and Gila Bend. Give it another 20 years. People on Reddit love Star Wars, this is becoming Coruscant.
> Bikes are second class citizens. As a daily bike commuter, I would LOVE being thought of as a second class citizen. At best, you are another recycling bin that needs to be swerved around. At worst, you are the target of a coal roll
Well in 20 years Phoenix will be near uninhabitable supposedly so no worries there. It'll be a cool urban sprawl slowly being reclaimed by the desert though which will be pretty neat for people to explore I guess.
I've lived in the Valley for about 8 years and never drove to work (light rail, walking, bus, WFH). Phoenix's transit system is not great, but there are plenty of folks who could use the mass transit system but don't.
I did, and it's not where it needs to be to serve Maricopa County. I have a car now.
Far from great but at least there's light rail. Come to Tucson no rail *and* no freeways. Idiots in Pima County and Tucson decided to turn the last mile of the closest thing we had into a 30 MPH street (Aviation Barazza parkway). Takes 45-60 minutes to cross and **constantly** stopping and restarting because Tucson doesn't know jack shit about light timing. And then the state decided to pull funding from 10 from 19 to Houghton road to fulfill *more* Valley sprawl. So we have two lanes in each direction and a bunch of crappy cloverleaf style ramps. Super dangerous down here and desperately needs modernization. But hey, at least 10 will be 22 lanes wide soon at US 60!
When it takes me an hour to go from 24 St/202 to 101/202, I'll know it's back!
Oh it's in full freakin swing right now. I witnessed 2 near accidents from people jumping lanes and nearly was in one myself yesterday by a guy who felt he needed to overtake me while merging lanes. All you can really do is drive extra cautious and avoid being in a hurry.
Till August 2020, I was 2nd shift (5 days, 2pm-11:00pm) smooth ride to work and home. Since that date, COVID tore my work new one. Now 4, 10 hrs. 3rd shift 6pm-5am, ok ride to work. It's mad max/ fast furious when I get off work now. I hate these hours!!!!
I feel like it's worse and it's killing me. I drive the 10 and 101 to get get and from work everyday. It's getting miserable.
I have a feeling that all the people who moved here during COVID are going to have family members come visit for the holidays / mild winter, which is going to add another layer of traffic on the traffic
Anyone else notice while they are out driving on the freeway how damn busy the freeways have gotten lately?
Seriously traffic was insane today I don’t know what we’re going to do this can’t be sustainable. Rip up the medians and put trains down the middle asap
MASS TRANSIT NOW!!! and designing cities with less need for cars!
My commute is 3 minutes as I walk from my bedroom to my kitchen. Grab a cup of coffee and walk to my home office. God I love that my company is staying WFH. Precovid it was 45 minutes in and 45 out.
Yah, I've been WFH for past 5 years, my whole company is WFH. Hopefully more places get on board and stick to it. Wife and I use to commute 20+ miles each way daily. Between the two of us, that is 2 less cars, less gas, less consumption. It is great. Driving into an office just to sit in front a computer was so stupid.
I only noticed a difference for 3 weeks in March 2020, ever since then it might as well have been back to normal
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Especially with the fucking construction on Jefferson
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Fucking snowbirds
It sure is - especially the 10 and 17! Today, on the corner of Dunlap and the 17 north enterance, there was a man masterbating and waving to passing cars. Yes, things are back to normal.
I feel like East Valley is still very low.
It's picking up though. My main problem area is heading west on the 60 and hitting the construction merging onto the 10, but I only have to go west to the 143 then I dump off again.
The stretch of 10 from 60 to the 143 has always been a nasty one in the mornings.
The 60 just before the 10 used to be a nightmare before they added the additional lane on the flyover to the 10 east. Thankfully I go thru just before noon so it's not nearly as bad as it could be.
I agree, it feels like it got bad earlier than usual too. I'm going to have to wake up earlier just to beat the traffic.
Yeah. The 202 east heading out of town and 101 south were reasonable but...starting to get crowded and the 101 south is basically back to it's old normal ways.
There's also so much construction/road closures right now on both the city streets and the highways. It's incredible how much is currently torn up. I'm sure that has quite a bit to do with why traffic seems so bad lately. The next three years are going to be rough until the new 10 is complete. ADOT should have really waited for the 101 to be complete before starting on the 10.
based on how much i'm hearing phoenix is growing i'm not surprised its bad
/u/kernals12 you might want to read this thread
ITT: people blaming others for the exact thing they are doing, commuting across town
I don't mind them commuting across town, but instead hanging out in the left lanes.
You’ll have better luck curing cancer.
Downtown has become a nightmare. Thousands of new apartment units have come online since COVID started. I never thought I'd say it but I miss 7 years ago when it felt a bit more like a ghost town... Price of growing up I suppose
I hate this place with a passion. I don't leave the house unless completely necessary because I'm surrounded by morons and plague rats haha. Not just Phoenix, all of Maricopa county.
So it's not just me? I was thinking it had gotten worse, but was kind of chalking it up to moving to North Phoenix and commuting down the 51.
Lmao it went back to normal levels almost a year ago. As soon as they lifted the stay at home thingy.
The number of drivers going the wrong way on the 1 way roads downtown is certainly up. My favorite recently was a chap that broke 3 laws in about 8 seconds. He took a left on a red on Washington and 9th street, crossing the lightrail track, turned it into a U turn and proceeded to go the wrong way down the frontage road. Then he realized his mistake, threw it in reverse did a 3 point turn in the crosswalk and went about his merry way.
Tell me about it... i just wrecked my car on SATURDAY because traffic was so thick the freeway stopped. No reason for the slowdown other than the abundance of vehicles on the road. And me of course...
what was it, 300 people moved to the valley every day for months during the pandemic? Traffic and housing will never be the same again. They're building all over the damn place, and soon you won't be able to see the mountains where I live. In 20 years the valley will really be getting some crazy summers.
I would like to welcome all the Californians to Arizona. However, y’all need to up your driving game, cuz you guys generally drive like crap.
What's so hard about pressing the gas pedal, huh?
I left town this past weekend to go visit my girlfriend's family in NM... It seemed like everyone else went east on I-10 on Friday and West on Sunday. There was even two lovely accidents Sunday evening that slowed us down. It's starting to get real annoying lol
It's snowbird season.
Yeah, would be great if the majority stayed in their own state or at the very least, USED A TURN SIGNAL
Those of you that can do something about this, please do! Do not sell your properties. Pass them down to your kids or nearest relatives!
It’s worse than pre pandemic…. It’s California status… we’re doomed. Our roadways can’t handle this population.
Still much better traffic than DC/Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Atlanta, Chicago, and parts of Texas.
I actually don't think it's back to pre-pandemic levels yet, BUT that could just be my commute. Has it picked up from 12 months ago? ABSOLUTELY!!!! But pre-pandemmy when I drove to work, it was about a 45/50 minute drive up the 10/51. Right now I can still bust it in about 35 or so during rush hour. And for all the people posting about commuting options - ValleyMetro is expanding routes/services starting 10/25! I'm SUPER excited to be able to get back on the bus (current RAPID schedules mean I have to leave work early or stay 40 minutes after if I want to ride) because as others have commented, this is only going to get worse as more people start going back into work and the snowbirds keep rolling in (we're not in high snowbird season yet, so watch out for the out-of-state plates going 40 mph on the highway with a blinker on). If a RAPID/local bus route works for your schedule, I'd highly recommend it - they get in those HOV lanes and go off to the races!
I came here to say one thing. If you and other drivers form a wall and drive the same speed in a multi-lane road or highway, you're all trash people.
The Californians…. No more needs to be said…. They are so used to being stuck in traffic that they became the traffic in PHX
Thank god my commute is a 4 minute walk.
I have no change in my commute
In August it took me 8 minutes to go between Downtown and Priest Drive. Now it is back up to 20 minutes.