wsdot snoqualmie rant

wolley i love doing 96 too but the kids smoking, drinking and selfie taking keep clogging the road doing 69.
get over and let me pass and after the slush shower they can get back to their lives.
b

For some perspective on the relative mountain pass traffic from the WDOT

"Typical traffic volumes over Snoqualmie Pass is about 28,000 vehicles per day and about 5,600 of those vehicles are freight. The typical traffic volumes over Stevens Pass is about 4,500 vehicles and about 450 of those vehicles are freight."


Someone mentioned that Stevens had more accidents statistically

Where did you get your numbers?

The legality of automatic speed cameras in Washington was being discussed on KIRO. Currently legal in two places. School areas I think. The new signs flashing variable speed limits would be more effective if they were synced with a method to apply small fines to the culprits. A solution directed at and paid for by a main cause of accident closures. The NSA already knows what day your skiing.

I'm surprised nobody has chimed in with rants from last night's complete clusterf@ck. Without night skiing, everybody left the ski areas right around 4pm. We unfortunately happened to arrive back from BC skiing right about this time. The I-90 backup extended along the entire frontage road as cars tried to exit from the ski area parking lots. We got stuck in this and moved 1/2 mile in 1.5 hours. We finally managed to turn around and creep our way to the freeway and then very slowly descend off the pass as they had it closed for avy work. All tolled, 3 hours from the east side of the summit to North Bend. (?!!?) The roads were so clogged with cars the snowplows could not get through so the slush and snow started to build up pretty significantly.

Highlights included:

*A UPS semi that thought he'd be smart and shortcut the freeway by going along the frontage road. He got stuck and it took a chained semi tow-truck to slowly pull him up a minor grade through the gridlock.

*A BMW X3 driver (presumably one of the aforementioned bellevueites?) who failed to understand AWD doesn't do jack when you leave on the crappy stock summer tires and don't chain up. Around the most minor of corners he slid sideways, bouncing off several cars in the other lane on his way.

*2 separate 4-runners full of douchebags that thought constantly changing lanes, tailgating and trying to pass while the freeway crept along at 2mph was a good idea. Thanks for making it worse for everybody, guys!

*Lots of people getting out of their stopped vehicles on the frontage road to piss, our entire passenger contingent included.

*People walking up to the mini-mart to buy beer for their compatriots waiting in the stuck car.

*People skiing/boarding down the middle of the road between lanes of stopped traffic.

All and all, good times!

Though I suppose it could have been worse. I had friends at Stevens who decided to head back east after they closed that pass going westbound. On their drive around through Leavenworth and Blewett they shut down Snoqualmie. It took them 7 hours to get home. Yikes. (Though I suppose distance/time, they actually did better than us overall)

Wow Josh, that is horrible. I left Alpy at 4:40 and made it to North Bend by 5:40. Given that Alpental was the most crowded i have seen it in a decade and freeway conditions were snowy I was fully expecting that. Backup started somewhere around Lot 2 I'm guessing.

Bt it sounds like the Snoqualmie side of the entrance (and perhaps a little earlier) was so much worse!

With WSDOT's complete failure on I90 these last few weeks it's making it increasing hard for me to feel smug towards the Southern cities that shutdown for any light dusting of snow.

My favorite last night was the children playing in traffic on frontage road - clearly their parents didn't spring for the DVD player in the family SUV. Luckily we were able to retreat back to the lodge at Hyak where we ordered pizza, a pitcher, and played pool. We were even able to watch the webcams of drivers stuck on 90, which allowed my smugness to make a full recovery.

We drove from Sun Peaks yesterday over the Coquihalla pass and it was slick and fully white from resort to Mt Vernon but due to the lack of traffic, we could still zip along with the snow tires no prob. What an adventure from Sumas to I5 though at 8pm. Double tanker truck in the ditch, blown in I reckon as the Frazer valley winds were strong with blowing snow, and countless trucks etc off the road. We mozied on through a foot of snow with barely a wobble. Even the most modest of cars with snow tires can go a long way. Mine is a CRV. As discussed, its only when folk who don’t know until its too late that cause the problem. If WSDOT changed it to snow tires only or chains there would never be a problem. Of course, that’s not practical for many folk but the pass would be closed way less frequently.