Traffic in and around the Vancouver area (Camas, Washougal: gated, live)

[FiestaRed]

What is the traffic like in Vancouver and some of its suburbs? City streets vs freeway? How heavy is it during rush hour?

[texasdiver]

Are you talking about Vancouver WA or Vancouver BC?

Here in Vancouver WA (when we aren't in Covid shutdown) the only bad traffic is the commute traffic to Portland over the I-205 and I-5 bridges. During the mornings both bridges are usually congested and going slow so traffic backs up on the Portland-bound freeways as well as the feeder roads like WA-14 and WA-500. During the afternoons it is the reverse, but not so bad in Vancouver because the bottleneck is the bridge and it usually speeds up soon after you get across.

Traffic on the surface streets is usually never bad at all unless the freeway gets backed up and then it is only the surface streets leading to freeway ramps. Traffic on surface streets and freeways is MUCH worse on the Portland side, pretty much throughout the entire metro area.

[FiestaRed]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Are you talking about Vancouver WA or Vancouver BC?

Here in Vancouver WA (when we aren't in Covid shutdown the only bad traffic is the commute traffic to Portland over the I-205 and I-5 bridges. During the mornings both bridges are usually congested and going slow so traffic backs up on the Portland-bound freeways as well as the feeder roads like WA-14 and WA-500. During the afternoons it is the reverse, but not so bad in Vancouver because the bottleneck is the bridge and it usually speeds up soon after you get across.

Traffic on the surface streets is usually never bad at all unless the freeway gets backed up and then it is only the surface streets leading to freeway ramps. Traffic on surface streets and freeways is MUCH worse on the Portland side, pretty much throughout the entire metro area.

Vancouver, Washington

Thanks!

[TheOrca]

Traffic gets worse every day.

South east vancouver has basically zero rural land anymore so there's pretty high population density. As a result mill plain during rush hour can actually become gridlocked. Can take you 30 minutes to get from 164th to chkalov.

Once you get out of south east vancouver well there's simply less people and less traffic - though you can still encounter problems every once in a while.

And of course the 205 i-5 can get clogged for hours a time. I can ride my bike faster than a car can get across the bridge during rush hour - very easily. Like 5x as fast.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by TheOrca

Traffic gets worse every day.

South east vancouver has basically zero rural land anymore so there's pretty high population density. As a result mill plain during rush hour can actually become gridlocked. Can take you 30 minutes to get from 164th to chkalov.

Once you get out of south east vancouver well there's simply less people and less traffic - though you can still encounter problems every once in a while.

And of course the 205 i-5 can get clogged for hours a time. I can ride my bike faster than a car can get across the bridge during rush hour - very easily. Like 5x as fast.

Well, there's still cows grazing on those fields in front of the tech center: https://goo.gl/maps/wmboWpgcPd1AGBex9

And there is still a winery on Mill Plain: https://www.englishestatewinery.com/


It's never taken me remotely close to 30 min to go from 165th to I-205 on Mill Plain. Well, maybe once one morning when a giant wreck closed off most of 205 at Highway 14 and everyone was trying to drive around it via Mill Plain and the ramps were all blocked off. But during ordinary rush hour traffic? Never. When I used to commute from Camas to Ridgefield and Highway 14 was all messed up because of the bridge traffic I would sometimes cut up 164th or 192nd to Mill Plain and then get on 205 at Chkalov and it never took more than 10-15 minutes during morning rush hour traffic.

[TheOrca]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Well, there's still cows grazing on those fields in front of the tech center



It's never taken me remotely close to 30 min to go from 165th to I-205 on Mill Plain. Well, maybe once one morning when a giant wreck closed off most of 205 at Highway 14 and everyone was trying to drive around it via Mill Plain and the ramps were all blocked off. But during ordinary rush hour traffic? Never. When I used to commute from Camas to Ridgefield and Highway 14 was all messed up because of the bridge traffic I would sometimes cut up 164th or 192nd to Mill Plain and then get on 205 at Chkalov and it never took more than 10-15 minutes during morning rush hour traffic.

Yeah maybe 30 minutes was an exaggeration, I hate driving and drive infrequently so I get frustrated with traffic pretty quickly.

The cows that live on the old HP campus? I love seeing those lol

Hopefully they raise the speed limits or something. I feel like everyone drives to slow around here

[jertheber]

Originally Posted by TheOrca

Yeah maybe 30 minutes was an exaggeration, I hate driving and drive infrequently so I get frustrated with traffic pretty quickly.

The cows that live on the old HP campus? I love seeing those lol

Hopefully they raise the speed limits or something. I feel like everyone drives to slow around here

I laughed out loud reading the last line: I tend to think of local traffic as moving way too fast for conditions, tailgating and apparent anxiety ridden drivers barely slowing down when I turn onto my street off the main thoroughfare. Yesterday on Mill Plain, east of 205, it sounded like a race course with the local Subaru-pseudo race car types loudly pulling off the stoplight as though they were at the drag races. I'm guessing the average speed was around fifty, with business pull outs galore, that's way too fast.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by jertheber

I laughed out loud reading the last line: I tend to think of local traffic as moving way too fast for conditions, tailgating and apparent anxiety ridden drivers barely slowing down when I turn onto my street off the main thoroughfare. Yesterday on Mill Plain, east of 205, it sounded like a race course with the local Subaru-pseudo race car types loudly pulling off the stoplight as though they were at the drag races. I'm guessing the average speed was around fifty, with business pull outs galore, that's way too fast.

Yes, people drive too fast.

Last winter just before the pandemic I was coming from Beacock Music after my kid's music lesson and turning right on 164th from 15th St. A southbound Honda Civic came blazing by, weaving in traffic, hit another car slowing to make a left turn into Fred Meyer, and launched corkscrewing into the air, landing upside down and eventually skidding to a stop in a spray of sparks right there in front of the New Seasons Market. Happened right in front of my eyes

Every year drivers also launch their cars off Lake Drive and Sierra in Camas which have some unexpectedly sharp curves if you are going 50 mph instead of the actual speed limit.

Some of the worst roads are the narrow rural roads like Washougal River Road where people drive crazy fast and get impatient if stuck behind drivers actually going the speed limit. https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/...al-river-road/ or just look at how many recent news stories of different crashes there have been on that road: https://www.google.com/search?q=wash...ver+road+crash

In East Vancouver, Mill Plain is probably the worse because people are always weaving to get around the city buses and they don't have pull-outs like they do on 164th and 192nd where the bus stop is out of the flow of traffic.

I'd be in favor of bringing back red light cameras and speed cameras. Nothing else seems to tame the minority of crazy drivers.

[jertheber]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Yes, people drive too fast.

Last winter just before the pandemic I was coming from Beacock Music after my kid's music lesson and turning right on 164th from 15th St. A southbound Honda Civic came blazing by, weaving in traffic, hit another car slowing to make a left turn into Fred Meyer, and launched corkscrewing into the air, landing upside down and eventually skidding to a stop in a spray of sparks right there in front of the New Seasons Market. Happened right in front of my eyes

Every year drivers also launch their cars off Lake Drive and Sierra in Camas which have some unexpectedly sharp curves if you are going 50 mph instead of the actual speed limit.

Some of the worst roads are the narrow rural roads like Washougal River Road where people drive crazy fast and get impatient if stuck behind drivers actually going the speed limit. https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/...al-river-road/ or just look at how many recent news stories of different crashes there have been on that road: https://www.google.com/search?q=wash...ver+road+crash

In East Vancouver, Mill Plain is probably the worse because people are always weaving to get around the city buses and they don't have pull-outs like they do on 164th and 192nd where the bus stop is out of the flow of traffic.

I'd be in favor of bringing back red light cameras and speed cameras. Nothing else seems to tame the minority of crazy drivers.

I think cameras are a great techno solution to the fact of not enough police presence, not to mention that we can't possibly police the entirety of our overcrowded roads no matter how many extra police are added. Some of the worst driving I see stems from the obvious-- "nobody's watching" mentality. I drive at or a couple MPH over the limit and I'm constantly being tailgated, passed, and given the stink eye or worse, met with aggressive cutting in front of me after passing, simply to demonstrate their anger at my "slow" driving. And yes, the Washougal River Road is on my list of, do not take, roads when out photographing in the rural areas.

[StealthRabbit]

If you must commute... work night shift. No / little traffic issues.