SEATTLE WANTS EVERYONE to know about its lousy traffic: When a study ranking our traffic among the nation’s worst was released on Monday, both daily papers immediately posted the information on their Web sites and made the story their top front-page headline the following day.
Down in Los Angeles, the only city to top Seattle in both the “heaviest traffic” and “longest traffic delays” categories, traffic jams apparently no longer qualify as news: The L.A. Times managed a small story in its Tuesday edition. In San Francisco (second in bad traffic), the Chronicle ran a wire-service piece spotlighting L.A.’s problems, not S.F.’s. Other cities making the “do not drive” list were more concerned: Washington, D.C.’s high ranking was the top breaking story on the Washington Post Web site, and the Chicago Tribune risked offending relocating Boeing executives by acknowledging the lousy traffic in its home city.
Our own Seattle Post-Intelligencer added Candy Hatcher’s call to demolish the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Is losing a major road really going to get cars moving faster?
James Bush
