Life in Balance: Amit D. Chaudhary’s Blog
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Wrapping up the thread comparing living in Seattle (Eastside aka Bellevue-Redmond-Kirkland) versus Silicon Valley (San Francisco Bay Area aka Mountain View-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara-San Jose)

4. Traffic, Commute times and Pollution

The Traffic in the Greater Seattle area is much worse than most of the Bay area. This was a major surprise for me personally. For example, Most of the days, it is not possible to leave Bellevue by I-405 to go to Kirkland or Bothell during typical work hours (7:30-9:30 am and 5-7 pm) without getting stuck in slow or non moving traffic. The result, a typical drive of 15 minutes becomes 45 or more minutes.

The same applies when trying to come from South (Renton, etc.) to Bellevue or Seattle or trying to go to Redmond(Microsoft offices which means roughly 30,000 people come into 2 exits in a 2 hour interval.) or in the evening at the junction were 520 ends in Redmond to get to Sammamish & Fall City. The only directions with smooth moving traffic to travel as of now are I-90 to Seattle and within a city itself using non-freeway roads. Since the IT jobs are in Bellevue, Seattle and Redmond, any other place implies a commute of 45 minutes each way. 60 minute commute is common and I know people with 90 minute commutes.
The traffic is equivalent of that on the bridges into San Francisco, the commute time same or more than as coming from Evergreen or South San Jose to the Silicon Valley. The roads here are smaller (2-3 lanes each side) and HOV hours are all through the day (9 am-7 pm.) The mass transit (bus service) is much better though with regular bus services, large bus stations and so on.
The reasons for lack of roads could be a combination of various things including No state income which implies lower state revenues, cities with local only agenda (From what I read, efforts to expand the 520 bridge have been tied up due to cities like Mercer Island resisting it) and overall lack of planning for population growth.

The NorthWest is more green and has less cars and people, but the pollution is much worse, even when on internal roads.

I am not sure, if it is the better emission or fuel standards in the bay area and California in general, but it is an anecdotal and consistent observation.

5. Miscellaneous

Most of the other items are more or less the same. There are good restaurants including Indian in both places, the Indian grocery stores are decent in Bellevue and around, items do go out of stock for 2-3 weeks at a stretch. There is a good Health club in Redmond called Pro Club, schools and daycares are good too, though maybe hard to get into.

One thing, I noticed is that Alcohol in Washington is sold only through Government stores, this means whacky prices for items like Single Malts (Glenlivet 12yr is 60% more than bay area), most shops are shabby establishments, do not open on sundays or holidays like MLK and close most days at 7 pm.

It is one of the contradictions, at one end is the lack of facilities (Poor Roads, No Showers in any National Park Camps, poor State Park facilities, etc) as an exchange for low taxes (No State income, no State Park parking fees) and at the other end is the forcing rules on others and deciding what is right. A mix of Republican and Democrat policies.