Does anyone drive through the West End on the morning commute? Can’t figure out the traffic patterns

Submitted by BeefyHoagie t3_10luatx in pittsburgh

I drive through the West End most mornings and I can’t for the life of me understand why half the time there is zero traffic going through there and then other days it backs up so much? Conspiracy in my mind is that the traffics lights just before the West End bridge are timed differently some days?

Pretty much all throughout January so far there has been almost no traffic. And then the past two days were jammed up. I can understand yesterday a bit w/ the snow but today was dry and it was backed up even worse.

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trail-coffee t1_j5z14zc wrote

On fort Pitt before COVID, 15 minutes was the difference between tons and none.

Do u keep track of the times u hit the traffic or the bridge?

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BeefyHoagie OP t1_j5z2a8s wrote

Coming through the West End biz district pretty much right at 8:10 every morning. So I’m pretty consistent. I guess it just is what it is… I also noticed coming home up 376 towards Green Tree seems like less traffic recently then in the past. Weird.

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da_london_09 t1_j5z55u6 wrote

Depends on how fucked up the Ft Pitt tunnel traffic is on any certain day.

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BeefyHoagie OP t1_j5z6jy3 wrote

I guess it definitely ties into that. Of course all traffic in the area is linked together. I put google maps on every morning even though I go the same exact route (just so I can see if anything unexpected is coming up). Weirdly this morning it initially routed me through the Ft Pitt Tunnel then gave me the “faster route available.”

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da_london_09 t1_j5z86cv wrote

I swear by Waze going from HP to Robinson every morning. I usually hit traffic early enough where Ft Pitt isn't a parking lot just yet. Otherwise I either take the West End bridge, or just go thru McKees Rocks and Kennedy Twp.

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TransporterOffline t1_j5zc98j wrote

Yep I was just about to plug Waze too. I love Google Maps for browsing and searching, but Waze is 1000% better with navigation and traffic avoidance.

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B0bb3r7 t1_j5zs32c wrote

That's funny cause waze is owned by google.

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TransporterOffline t1_j601yit wrote

Exactly. And it absolutely irritates the shit out of me how weak Waze search is. Usually I end up searching on Google Maps, then copying the address into Waze. The two products really could not be more different. I just think the navigational aspect of Waze is superior, especially when I'm driving with no plotted destination (speed limits, upcoming intersections, traffic, etc.).

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TransporterOffline t1_j5z1upa wrote

Pre-Covid, it definitely varied by day also. I noticed West End and 376/51/65/28/279 traffic was light on basically all Mondays and most Fridays, and very heavy on Tuesdays through Thursdays.

I always chalked the light Mondays up to deliveries not arriving from shippers being closed over the weekends and restaging/receiving Mondays, so that meant Tuesdays had a lot of shipping/truck volume.

I always felt Fridays were light due to workers who have 4-day work weeks (M-Th), and the heavy Fridays were due to cultural events Downtown.

I would have no clue what the rhythms are today. Literally everything has changed in the past three years.

And also what trail-coffee said, I felt like 5-10 minutes (especially 3:30pm) made the difference between quickly moving and near gridlock.

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grandma_millennial t1_j5z9ebq wrote

I used to do traffic studies at a previous job and they would only ever count Tuesday to Thursday. Mondays and Fridays were always different for some of the reasons you mentioned. Neat stuff.

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Eco-freako t1_j5z6l87 wrote

It’s probably just the way that light works. It’s timed, but it holds a lot of traffic from the West End and from the bridge. So, if you’re hitting it right at the right time in it’s sequence, then you’ll get caught in the traffic.

That intersection, by the way, took me about a year of regularly driving through to finally figure out which lane to be in.

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lifes_nether_regions t1_j5zdqjz wrote

It's not just the circle so I say it's not the light. For example today the traffic was backed up on corliss all the way the busway on chartiers. It took forever to get to carson street. Yesterday, exact same time there was zero traffic.

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Confident_End_3848 t1_j5zfope wrote

I don’t use the circle a lot now, but when I did it everyday a long time ago, I liked that through traffic went underneath the circle, avoiding the traffic mess.

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ajs904 t1_j621lkd wrote

I drive 51 from around BP to west end bridge and it’s easy. Barely any traffic.

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