Street Smarts reader Kathy Moon notes there’s been a change to the reader board at the I-5 and I-405 interchange, which now gives the estimated travel time to Southcenter instead of Seattle. “Do you know why the change was made?”
The ever-helpful Mike Allende, who works for the state Department of Transportation, shares the answer.
“We made this change as a subtle way to help manage traffic, basically working within the resources we have to try to help people’s commute,” Allende said. “By listing the travel time to Southcenter, it gives drivers headed south of Seattle (say, to the airport or Tacoma) a choice of whether to use I-5 or I-405 depending on which seems to be running better. Essentially it’s a way of trying to separate traffic headed out of Seattle from traffic headed to Seattle, hopefully balancing traffic.”
You can still find Everett-to-Seattle and other travel times on the WSDOT website.
Have a question? Email us at streetsmarts@heraldnet.com. Please include your name and city of residence. Look for updates on our Street Smarts blog.
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