speedless in seattle

I promise I'm not trying to be a jerk, but speed limits aren't a suggestion.

I'm particularly fond of the corner of N.E. 45th and 45th N.E. The roads are deliberate, of course. Developed and paid for by Lesser Seattle, a civic organization that wishes you would all go back to where you came from and let us enjoy our little pleasures -- like merging from I-5 to the West Seattle Bridge. (If you don't believe me, check out Lesser Seattle on Wiki.) If you really feel the Need for Speed, simply get on the freeway and drive north. Just beyond Everett you will meet the hordes of Canadians, whose loony is pretty much on a par with the dollar these days, headed for the outlet malls for our third world bargains. 80 is pretty much their cruising speed. As for your questions: unless there is a sign that says "No Turn on Red" -- turn already! And yeah, most of us tend to follow the posted speed limits on the freeway, maybe 5 miles over. If you have a problem with that you are welcome to go somewhere else. Please. Especially if you're one of those drivers who thinks if you get very very close to my rear bumper I'll drive faster. And as for the lack of straight lines through town, there are indeed a lot of curves and diagonals. Perhaps you've noticed the number of hills and lakes scattered around town? The roads are going around them. And I think I speak for most of us when we say we'd rather have an interesting drive than a flat out straight shot. Seriously, not everyone is suited to live in the Pacific Northwest, particularly as the Gray Season sets in. I hope you can relax and enjoy the good parts.

The rules for driving in Seattle, according to me, are as follows: 1. Merge with confidence. 2. Take your right-of-way. 3. Use good lane discipline, even when turning right on red. 4. If everyone around you is driving slower than you want them to, there's probably a good reason. 5. Leave a safe following distance, for God's sake. The particular kind of rain we have around here can cause mercilessly slick conditions, and spinning out on a crowded offramp can ruin a lot of people's day.

Here's a tip for a situation you haven't mentioned yet: the all-way stop. You find these in a lot of busy neighborhoods like Queen Anne and Capitol Hill. (I would call it a four-way stop, but I can think of several five-way stops off the top of my head.) According to the rule books, everyone yields clockwise. (Left yields to right.) But that's not what we do. Here's the rule: 1. Whoever's first to the stop gets to go first. 2. When multiple cars arrive at the same time, or there's a line of several cars waiting to get through the intersection: pretend like there is a set of traffic lights that's only letting one car through per cycle. This means that you'll have two facing turning cars go, then two facing "driving straight," then the opposite two facing turning cars, and the opposite two facing "driving straight." That person on the fifth/odd angle road is going to have to nudge their way in. It sucks to be that person, but usually if you start kind of crawling your way through the intersection, other people will let you through. It makes more sense once you see it in action. After fifteen years living in neighborhoods dotted with these intersections, I have learned to short-circuit the "no, after you" dance that you can get into. If the other car is all "oh please, be my guest," then I just GO. I think it annoys them, because you're supposed to be reciprocally polite, but frankly I have better things to do.

Check out http://www.cityofseattle.net/html/visitor/directions.htm#streets, and the linked wiki article. The naming conventions convey a lot of information, but you have to know how to decode it. For example: N.E. 45th and 45th N.E. - The compass designation in front of the name means that NE 45th is NE 45th Street, and runs East-West. The compass designation after the name means that 45th NE is 45th Avenue NE, and runs North-South. In each case, the NE means (roughly) that the address is located in the area of town between I-5 (on the West) and Lake Washington (on the East), and 145th Street on the North, and Portage/Union bays on the South. Likewise, NW, N, W, E, S and (blank) all refer to different parts of town.

sammich http://ask.metafilter.com/166186/speedless-in-seattle#2389038 "I understand that roads curve around hills but I don't buy the excuse that that's the only reason. SF is much hillier than Seattle but the percentage of wacky streets isn't as high." Downtown, at least, the funny angled street grids are a result of disagreement among town founders as to how streets should be laid out. Doc Maynard thought the grid should be oriented to the cardinal points of the compass, and Denny and Boren thought the grid should follow the shore of Elliot Bay. (http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=2026

streets and avenues with the same names that are miles apart It's far worse is when they are close to each other. 1st Ave N is two blocks away from 1st Ave W. Don't confuse either of them with 1st Ave. I understand that roads curve around hills but I don't buy the excuse that that's the only reason. SF is much hillier than Seattle but the percentage of wacky streets isn't as high. The other reason is all the water everywhere. Seriously, look at a topographical map of Seattle sometime. there's no way to use the West Seattle Bridge to go east to I-5 The West Seattle Bridge does not go east to I-5. It is the bridge to the west. I know Google Maps says otherwise, but it is wrong. The viaduct to the east is called the Spokane Street Viaduct. WA-99 is really old and doesn't meet current engineering standards. Consistency is not something you should expect out of it, especially things that were added later like the bridge connection.

Heyforfour, I agree with you about in-town surface street driving (although midwesterners are similar, and of course there's a cultural connection back to law-abiding Scandinavian cultures). Seattle also has pretty rigorous law enforcement in general (only place I know you can actually get a ticket for jaywalking). And maybe highway driving was different in your youth; Seattle has grown a lot in the last couple of decades. At any given time, I'd be willing to bet 30 percent or more of the highway traffic doesn't consist of local drivers in any case. As someone who has lived there (for 3 years in the mid 90s), and been back regularly enough since, and having just come back from a driving (mountain) vacation that ended with me making it from the Edmonds ferry terminal to the rental car turn in at Sea-Tac in about 35 minutes at 7pm on a weeknight (about 30 miles, the first 10 mins on the surface road from Edmonds to I5, you do the math), I found I had to do very little tuning of my speed/aggression instincts, which are now primarily adapted to New York conditions. In fact, I remember thinking to myself that this was the fastest average speed I'd ever seen on I5 through Seattle. It was a nice clear evening, summer, so still light. I think politeness and speed are not necessarily the same thing. While I heartily approve of the argument that speed kills, there is such a thing as driving dangerously slowly (or timidly) on interstate-grade highways. The going speed on highways through dense urban areas in the US is about 5-7 miles over the speed limit, conditions permitting (and they rarely do). There are other factors, weather being a big one, that create local driving cultures. Where it rains a lot and gets dark early, a more cautious driving style is certainly adaptive. And where there are a lot of trucks on the road, as there are in that stretch of I5 due to the port, the border, the logging industry, and the rail terminus, things slow down more too. But I really think traffic density is far more important than culture. I think America drives faster than it did 10 years ago overall. Better, safer cars and roads, and everyone ever more stressed out and distracted. Someone must have studied these issues statistically by city or state.

One more trick. PiNe is North of Pike.