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There is some truth to the complaints many Tri-Valley residents make about traffic, especially when they’re idling in their cars along Interstate 580 around 5 o’clock on weekdays.
Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, with Caltrans District 4 Director Bijan Sartipi, announced today that the Tri-Valley area has the No. 2 worst congestion in the entire Bay Area. Garnering first place was the oft-gridlocked Interstate 80 from Hercules (State Route 4) to the Bay Bridge with an average of 12,230 daily vehicle hours of delay.
According to a news release from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which gathered the data, the afternoon drive from the Interstate 680/580 junction east to El Charro Road ranked second place for the second straight year. Between the hours of 2:50 and 7:30 p.m., that section of the freeway averaged 6,720 daily vehicle hours of delay.
No. 3 went to the morning drive westbound from Flynn Road at the top of the Altamont Pass to Airway Boulevard in Livermore. That route logged an average of 5,320 daily vehicle hours of delay.
“The eastbound and westbound 580 commutes have ranked two and three on the list for several years in a row,” Haggerty, who is also vice chair of the MTC, said. “The good news is that help is on the way. Voters have spoken loud and clear–most recently last November, when they overwhelmingly approved the Proposition 1B transportation infrastructure bond–that they want relief.
“The first commitments from that bond money already have been made, and the funds will help pay for improvements not just on 580 through the Tri-Valley, but on chronically congested corridors around the Bay Area.”
Sartipi, speaking about the improvements either under way or scheduled for the future, said that prop. Prop. 1B funds will pay for new carpool lanes in both directions of 580, among other projects. According to the data, the largest overall increase in freeway congestion in 2006 was in Alameda County, where daily vehicle hours of delay grew by 3,200 to 5,500.
Transportation officials attribute the increasingly worse traffic conditions to a rising economy. The expansion of the regional economy drove the creation of an estimated 61,000 jobs in 2006, according to the state Employment Development Department. Overall, the daily number of vehicle hours of delay due to congestion across all nine Bay Area counties rose 6 percent last year. In 2005, there was a 9 percent surge and in 2004, that number was 2 percent.
Click below for a map of the top 10 worst commutes:
Click below for a list of the worst morning and evening commutes:
Click below for a map of the top 10 worst commutes:
Click below for a list of the worst morning and evening commutes: