Where I used to live

Check out this article from The Seattle Times,

Uber and Lyft are increasing car traffic in Seattle. How much? 94 million miles

[www.seattletimes.com]

Happy to living in Mexico for the past 20 years

Have not thought of the influence of Uber & Lift, but life in the Seattle/Tacoma area is becoming unbearable with horrific traffic. Since the explosive growth of Amazon about 3 years ago we have a new "normal" where you can never at any hour of the day or night travel I-5 without gridlock.
In times past it was 35 minutes downtown to downtown, Sea-Tac.... now it's a standstill crapshoot that can eat up 90 minutes. Sucks, no solution in sight.

Edit: And don't get me started on the Seattle homeless problems. Every park, every overpass, every patch of spare dirt has a tent. And there's run down RVs parked 3 to a block in many neighborhoods.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2018 11:00AM by Kip Wylie.

I really don't think it matters much, every larger city has traffic problems.

Where I live we used to have a 6am to 9am and 3:30pm to 6:30pm rush hour and between 9am and 3pm it was pretty good. Now it's like rush hour goes on from 6am to 7pm and hardly any letup between those hours.Getting parked is the pits too!

I was in Europe 3 years ago and did not see the traffic congestion I have seen elsewhere. Budapest, Vienna, Cologne, Amsterdam and Berlin were all a piece of cake by comparison.

I was in China for 3 weeks a year ago and traffic was horrible in large cities ie. Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong etc..

I just came back from 2 weeks in Russia and the traffic in Moscow and Saint Petersburg was just as horrible. On top of it both those cities have fantastic subway systems which millions use every day. I could not imagine what it might be like without the subways.

Moscow's daily subway users is 6.9 million people.
Saint Petersburg daily subway users is 2 million people
Mexico City daily subway users is 4.4 million people

I go to Seattle several times a year from my home in SE Alaska for Dr. visits, periodontist etc., and I would always rent a car to get around. Then the light rail from SeaTac to downtown opened, and a couple years ago I decided to give it a try along with buses where needed. I haven’t rented a car there since. I now have the β€˜Orca' card on which you add value as needed online and is good for the light rail and all the buses and transfers between them, all electronically managed. I just spent five days there and all my travel there including to and from the airport cost a grand total of exactly $25. Buses often have their own lane so we regularly whizzed by bumper to bumper car traffic. Only downside is you are limited to what you can carry, so....not great if you’re planning a big shopping trip. But otherwise.....I love it.

One of the reasons that I live in Lillooet B.C. is the ease of going around. Friends and family in the lower mainland, Vancouver B.C. etc.only leave the house when the traffic slows down. I found the quality of life was affected by traffic. Recently, my wife and daughter went shopping in the city. A jumper on the Lion's Gate bridge locked them in traffic for 5 hours. You might have all the amenities in the city but there is also a huge frustration level. Speaking of that, I had to wait for 4 cars to go by while at the stop sign yesterday, Oh well, it was rush hour. Now if we could only do something about the bloody smoke.

Visibility less than a kilometre here in north Okanagan. Can’t escape the smell anywhere. Feel really bad for those with breathing issues and the elderly. Expected to be this way for a minimum of ten days.

... we hear ya Peter, but you must like the heat....... in July Lillooet: 40.6 C Previous record high: 39.7 C in 2012..and your buddies just down the road in Lytton hit almost 42.. that's a tad toasty even for me and even if it is a 'dry heat'... for the same reasons as you I lived on the Island... Nanaimo finally settling down in Chemainus.. a nice quiet town full of snotty-ol-Brit types along with a few newly marrieds and lotsa nearly buried's living in their patio homes. Quiet, mostly ultra conservative folks with a sometimes lefty political slant.. they don't call it the "Left Coast' for nothing. Peak rush hour traffic consisted of 15 minutes worth of Mill Rats getting off work from the Crofton paper mill, and heading home toward Ladysmith or Nanaimo.

But there isn't a lot to do. When I first arrived back in the 80's there were a few spring salmon in the chuck, now almost nothing...went fishing in a rowboat and actually caught a few, now you need serious money and gear and a trip over to Tofino, You get tired of watching the mixed rain and snow pounding down on the pavement in January. The day after Halloween they're putting up Xmas decorations in the stores..with trashy jinglebellsy music a blaring from the speakers... Bah, Humbug. ...color me a bit jaded.

Canada has become a depressing, sterile, highly taxed, expensive and over-controlled society. You need permissions galore, or a cert or a permit for just about everything and anything. If I were in Canada I'd probably be sitting in court or jail for just the basic renos we did here to the house, simply because I didn't get a building permit, an electrical permit, didn't get my plumbing done and inspected by a certified plumber, the air/con done by a certified H-Vac guy, and then pay those thieves 10X the money it cost me here.

Don't get me going on Canada's expensive, corrupt and inefficient health care system...and why the hell can't I buy American or Mexican or Danish butter and cheese in Canada?

Am much happier here... sitting back enjoying my $8 bottle of scotch. In Canada it costs $10 just for a 1oz watered down drink of bar scotch at the pub...

Viv a la Mexico

Hey Mort, you posted all the reasons I just moved to Chemainus, off leash dog parks, but they still can't smoke, people remember your name, small town feel, just like White Rock 30 years ago. Walk anywhere, anytime and feel safe. Sidewalks are rolled up promptly at 8 bells and the only place to eat after 8 is the Sawmill Pub. Got seriously side eyed for my ADT sign, maybe even a gimlet eye, so adjusting down is the rule of thumb here. But then, the other half of the year in Mexico, soon as the boat is put away for the long wet cold season, is the time for really feeling the speed of life get to minus 8 warp speed. And Simonas, moved off the wind tunnel, or tables interfering with the beach access, something to look forward to. Always something to look forward to. That's it!

MortimerSnerd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Canada has become a depressing, sterile, highly
> taxed, expensive and over-controlled society.

> Viv a la Mexico

Bullsh*t :)
Come south across one border and you'll have all that plus bunch of overweight Walmart trash in MAGA hats.
I just returned from my first trip to Canada in a few decades and I'm in love. As I rode my bike around Victoria (after a week at Nitinat) I thought, wow, these people surely pay a bunch of taxes. But....clean, orderly, polite, no homeless. Maybe Sweden's like this?
I'll take it.

Isla... if you go up Oak Street to the top of the hill from the ferry... there is a fine old manor house, second oldest in town has long history, once the mill managers house, and for 20 years or so, 1897 or so till WW1, perhaps after was the town's bawdy house complete with the madam that owned it. She and the girls serviced the guys who worked in the old sawmill, these were the days before M&B came to town. If the walls could talk! That'd be where I live...my son has the apartment now, but I can go anytime. Maybe I bitched about some of the irritants but the prime reason is, I have a mobility disability and during the winter it gets downright dangerous for me with the snow and ice. And yes it snows and ices up at some point during the winter... some more than others, like last year. I knew eventually I was gonna slip and break something so it was time to move on...

Isla... if you get along with snotty ol Brits you'll be in good company... I did.. took a great interest in the community... even ran for a seat on the CVRD council at one point, didn't win but sopped up a lotta votes and scared the hell outta the fair haired favoured boy who did.. wow do you ever learn fast about small town politics... you'll have fun in Chemaius. The 49th is a nice grocery now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2018 09:01PM by MortimerSnerd.

Kip Wylie

I just heard on TV yesterday that (in a recent study) Canadians are the seventh happiest people in the World -- with Finland #1 and Norway #2. So, as you suggest, life can't be so bad there.

Another reason Canada is not such a bad place to live...Canada has 3 cities in the top 10 of the best cities to live in the whole wide world.

[www.cntraveler.com]

oldgringo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another reason Canada is not such a bad place to
> live...Canada has 3 cities in the top 10 of the
> best cities to live in the whole wide world.
>
> [www.cntraveler.com]

Maybe that's because Canada sent all of its grouchy people to its penal colony in this area.

Of course, I'm kidding!!!!! :) :) :)

Just spent 4 days in Sec Tac area for an Audi National Convention. Traffic absolutely horrible now. Took 2 hours to go from Seattle to Tacoma on the 405... And no alternatives as 5 under construction. Californians that moved from SoCal to Seattle to get away from congestion now moving to Spokane and Coeur D'Lane for same reasons. Pikes Market still great but a real zoo on weekends.

But what is a MAGA hat ??

Two years ago we took CA 210 off I-5 toward I-10 and Palm Springs and Riverside at 4AM in the morning.. almost gridlock with semi's... going down the Grapevine toward 99 and Bakersfield... solid 2 lines to the horizon of bumper to bumper semi's at midnight, many carrying COSCO containers (Chinese imports) heading east... not so many cars... mostly semi's.. just blew me away the continuous high density of traffic. I-5 from San Francisco.. you didn't dare drive less than 75 or 80mph even in the slow lane because half the traffic was passing you in the fast lane and nobody could merge... there were absolutely no breaks in the traffic. That's scary..

There is nowhere to run... no escape from the congestion now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2018 01:15PM by MortimerSnerd.

patti Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But what is a MAGA hat ??

Oddly... most (all) are made in China:

-- moved topic --