Traffic

I made a huge mistake today.  There was an all-hands meeting at work starting at 8.30 am.  I thought I would try to make it in for the meeting, instead of listening to it at home or watching a replay at a later time.  I didn’t want to miss the chance of some free breakfast either.  So I set my alarm early, got up early and left home about 7.20 am - knowing that it would be  a much longer commute than normal, but Google Maps was still telling me the commute time would be about 50 minutes so I should arrive at the office in plenty of time.  And what time did I arrive?  9.00 am.  Yes – it took me over an hour and a half to travel about 14 miles to get into work.  Utterly preposterous.  I missed most of the meeting, and all the breakfast had gone by the time I got in.  Very pissed to say the least.  Google Maps lied to me about the commute time.  Maybe the traffic got backed up by an accident – after all, it was yet again a very wet commute.  I definitely should have left earlier – and indeed, if I ever try to do this again (unlikely) then I would want to leave before 6.30 am.  And this was a Wednesday – not the best day of the week for commuting, but certainly not the worst.  And there seemed to be an awful lot of traffic – particularly going to the university, who surely have some responsibility to promote better use of public transport.  I should have used Google Maps during the commute – it would probably have saved me time if I had gotten off the freeway and taken local streets.  But still, just an indication of how horrific the traffic around Seattle has become and why it has totally changed my (and probably many others) work patterns.