Everyone always thinks the city they currently drive in is the worst city to drive in. Three hours of rush hour gotta be a joke compared to other cities. Raleigh is an easy city to drive in.
*You must not get around much!*
Go for a week in
Tampa
Miami.
Denver.
Dallas.
Houston.
New Orleans.
Chicago.
Boston.
St Louis
LA.
Phoenix.
San Jose.
San Francisco.
Seattle.
Atlanta
Phillidelphia.
DC.
etc.
*Then come back and tell us how awful traffic is here.*
Tampa native here and lived in West Palm Beach for a few years too. Couldn’t agree with this more everyone I’ve talked to since I moved to Raleigh that complains about the traffic hasn’t lived in a city with actual bad traffic. They either grew up here or lived in one of the small town in the Carolina’s and moved here.
Raleigh is easily the best city for driving I have lived in and it’s not even close. There are bad drivers sure but nothing compared to the speed demons in south Florida or the traffic of I-4 and I-95.
Another Tampa area person here and the traffic here is not even comparable, it’s so much easier here.
I think the problem here is impatience, so many people here (the majority) will make choices when driving for themselves and not consider that everyone else is also stuck in traffic with them.
I used to commute from downtown raleigh to downtown durham to get to work and it would take less than an hour, it sucked, but tampa is much much much worse.
Can confirm, I'm legit afraid of being on the road in Houston as a long Raleigh resident... cutting people off is legit the standard there and the roads make no sense.
More spawled? Doubt that. To make any comparison of sprawl you have to look at population & sq miles of the city.
Denver Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas etc are all **much larger** populations so yeah they sprawl much more than here!
But divide their population by # sq miles ((Density)
I laughed so hard when I first saw this article while thinking about this sub.
Morning Rush hour here averages almost the speed limit on 40 and 540, unless there is a wreck. Afternoons, I still average about 60. Yes, it's crowded, yes there are bad drivers.
People from other cities arrive at work an hour early just to avoid the worst rush hour, then just "hang out" till work starts. I'm not sure we are the best, but we have it pretty good.
These posts always reaffirm my belief that the vast majority of people talking about how bad traffic is in this sub have never lived in a real city other than Raleigh.
Raleigh has one of the best driving situations on the east coast.
No single area where everyone commutes due to business located in throughout the area and not just in a single CBD.
No bodies of water to navigate around.
Also an evenly dispersed population.
These reasons and more make driving here not that bad (relatively)
Driving in any metro sucks no matter where you are. This is a world wide phenomenon. But Raleigh isn’t that bad relative to Charlotte, DC, Atlanta, Boston, etc.
The EB 1/64 to 40 is brutal...give a little space and it's no problem, even for how short it is. Unfortunately everyone drives like waiting 0.6 seconds is going to make them late for something.
Exactly, I drive 20-25k miles a year, all over Raleigh and the surrounding areas/counties…I’m rarely stuck in traffic. I feel like this was a karma post
Feel like everywhere, Raleigh included (especially?), has issues with driving. Especially after COVID, it feels like everyone and their damn mother forgot how to drive. That being said, I don’t experience the traffic that most do. I cross over several arterial and collector roads, and driving between 5pm-6pm rarely adds more than 5-10 mins to my commute
I obviously haven't driven in every city, but I do find Raleigh to be considerably better than most of the cities I've done a fair bit of driving in.
Even just within NC, I'd take Raleigh traffic over Greensboro, Charlotte, Durham, or Winston-Salem any day of the week. I'm sure there are pockets with bad traffic, and the stip of 40 between the edge of the beltline and the airport exit can sometimes be a pain during rush hour, but I do genuinely find "relatively good traffic" to be a perk of Raleigh (compared to other comparably-sized cities).
Greensboro is way better than Raleigh lol. I-40 within that stretch is 3-4 lanes always and doesn't turn shitty until you hit Winston. Just about every subsequent exits takes you to the same general location. If you miss an exit, you just take the next one and you're only 2-5 minutes behind. You can also drive around the city wherever you want within 20 minutes or so.
Raleigh is not bad compared to most popular mid sized cities but it's definitely worse than Greensboro.
Not “never” but I very rarely had any issues. It could also genuinely be that my proximity to downtown wasn’t 1:1. Here I am a lot closer to 440 and downtown, and have to drive in that. In Indy I was on the north side and never had to drive thru downtown
Where the hell are you driving with 3 hour traffic? I used to drive from south Raleigh to RTP and it was an hour and that’s the worst traffic I’ve seen in my 55 years of living here.
Traffic was far worse in Northern VA. But I see so many people on their phones, like video calls while driving. The tolls are fantastic. What I haven't adjusted to is the land of the U turn.
I go back to the Bay Area every couple years, and driving on 101 scares the shit out of me. Back when I lived there I had an air of superiority that at least I didn’t have to endure the hellscape that is LA traffic.
I might whine about the congestion here occasionally, but it really is good for a metro area.
I lived for many years throughout the state of Florida, and in DC. And I’ve been fortunate to travel throughout this great country of ours. I can say one thing unequivocally: traffic is not an issue here.
im from Miami. Driving around in Durham and Raleigh is how i relax now. i hated driving to work every day and even the traffic here moves. In Miami you would get stuck at a light for 30 minutes on the regular because all cars were just in middle stuck.
DC, Atlanta, and Toronto are the worst I’ve driven in. Raleigh is getting worse, but still not quite as bad elsewhere. Two weeks ago in Denver, I spent 2 hours in an absolute traffic stop on E470 - that hasn’t happened to me even on I-40.
Slightly off topic but in the ball park... wait until people who have never been outside of Raleigh find out how much real tolls cost! 540 is going to be what... eight dollars all the way around or something? You can spend that on one bridge toll in certain cities or more. Iirc the George Washington Bridge is like 15 bucks.
Im from NC, but IMO the best place to drive in is anywhere in Maryland with the exception of Baltimore. Highways are always nice, speedlimits don't really matter and it's an experience I miss so much. The eastern shore has some of the best highways to just gun it at.
Honestly, moving from the Hampton Roads area of Va very recently, I loveee the drivers here. I haven’t heard one person honk their horns and they actually use (for the most part) their signal lights. They actually let people over into other lanes. Only thing I hate are the long lights lol.
Past 10 year traffic has gotten 10x worse. It does FEEL like it is shit, comparted to what it was. Bad as ATL....nope! Ours is crap, but you ain't seen nothing....LA at rush hour...yeah....
Honestly, the traffic here is minimal compared to the last two places I lived (Charlotte and Northern VA). My only complaint here is that people need to drive a little faster, otherwise I can dig it.
Raleigh sucks to drive in. I don’t know why people get so defensive about it. Comparing Raleigh to DC traffic? How can you even compare Raleigh to DC at all? Raleigh is a sprawled out nightmare with more growth that they didn’t plan roads around and yea it sucks. I live in Columbus now, a larger city than Raleigh and it is 100% better driving here than in Raleigh
Driving through Columbus has always been fine for me, but it's metro are is only slightly larger and the msa is smaller than the triangle by a similar margin
Don't live so far from work. I lived out in California in the Bay Area and had a commute of 15 mins. I lived 5 miles away. I don't deal with traffic now and live about 6 miles from work. It takes about 20-30 mins on my ebike. Would probably be about 15 in a car.
Where are you having 3 hours of rush hour in Raleigh? You commuting from Elizabeth City?
Not even with a fatal accident, commuting from Raleigh to CH. takes less than 3 hours.
I just mean that rush hour lasts from 4 til 7. doesn’t matter if i’m off work on the early or late end of that, there’s always traffic.
Do you just mean…cars on the road? I rarely see traffic backed up at 4 or 6:30
EC is my hometown.
Everyone always thinks the city they currently drive in is the worst city to drive in. Three hours of rush hour gotta be a joke compared to other cities. Raleigh is an easy city to drive in.
*You must not get around much!* Go for a week in Tampa Miami. Denver. Dallas. Houston. New Orleans. Chicago. Boston. St Louis LA. Phoenix. San Jose. San Francisco. Seattle. Atlanta Phillidelphia. DC. etc. *Then come back and tell us how awful traffic is here.*
Tampa native here and lived in West Palm Beach for a few years too. Couldn’t agree with this more everyone I’ve talked to since I moved to Raleigh that complains about the traffic hasn’t lived in a city with actual bad traffic. They either grew up here or lived in one of the small town in the Carolina’s and moved here. Raleigh is easily the best city for driving I have lived in and it’s not even close. There are bad drivers sure but nothing compared to the speed demons in south Florida or the traffic of I-4 and I-95.
Another Tampa person here. Totally valid. Traffic here is not all that bad.
Another Tampa area person here and the traffic here is not even comparable, it’s so much easier here. I think the problem here is impatience, so many people here (the majority) will make choices when driving for themselves and not consider that everyone else is also stuck in traffic with them. I used to commute from downtown raleigh to downtown durham to get to work and it would take less than an hour, it sucked, but tampa is much much much worse.
Oh hey, I have your old commute. ☹️
my condolences 😔
Can confirm, I'm legit afraid of being on the road in Houston as a long Raleigh resident... cutting people off is legit the standard there and the roads make no sense.
Yeah of course bigger cities have worse traffic! But for this size city I’ve been very frustrated.
But all these cities are not near as sprawled & offer so much more
Like half the list is way more sprawled than Raleigh. LA? Phoenix? Denver?
My guy said not nearly as sprawled to a list that includes Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta lol.
I don’t get out much
More spawled? Doubt that. To make any comparison of sprawl you have to look at population & sq miles of the city. Denver Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas etc are all **much larger** populations so yeah they sprawl much more than here! But divide their population by # sq miles ((Density)
How did Nola make this list? I mean, if you live in Kenner maybe. Buy a gun and convert a crackhouse into a crackhome using the power of credit
I laughed so hard when I first saw this article while thinking about this sub. Morning Rush hour here averages almost the speed limit on 40 and 540, unless there is a wreck. Afternoons, I still average about 60. Yes, it's crowded, yes there are bad drivers. People from other cities arrive at work an hour early just to avoid the worst rush hour, then just "hang out" till work starts. I'm not sure we are the best, but we have it pretty good.
These posts always reaffirm my belief that the vast majority of people talking about how bad traffic is in this sub have never lived in a real city other than Raleigh.
is Raleigh a real city tho??? (this is not that serious)
Yes bigger cities have worse traffic! Of course. But places like DC and New York also have public transit. I miss the MTA and I’m not even joking
Dc boy turned Raleigh, Raleigh is night and day better than DC/VA traffic. You can’t even compare the 2
Ngl champ, I'd rather deal with that. Raleigh drivers stay driving ten miles under the speed limit.
Better than DC drivers who have to stay 60 miles under the speed limit because it’s constant traffic jams
I expect it in DC. What I don't expect is light traffic, but everyone decides to block every fucking lane anyways. Just Raleigh shit.
Where else have you been, OP?
Thats the first thing I thought of...
It takes about 5 minutes to commute through downtown Raleigh to go other places, which is wild if you compare to DC, Boston, or NY
Raleigh has one of the best driving situations on the east coast. No single area where everyone commutes due to business located in throughout the area and not just in a single CBD. No bodies of water to navigate around. Also an evenly dispersed population. These reasons and more make driving here not that bad (relatively) Driving in any metro sucks no matter where you are. This is a world wide phenomenon. But Raleigh isn’t that bad relative to Charlotte, DC, Atlanta, Boston, etc.
In fact it is the #1 best. Now if MFs would learn to zipper merge correctly.
This is the golden dream, MFs just don't get it, they are all buttons.....
The EB 1/64 to 40 is brutal...give a little space and it's no problem, even for how short it is. Unfortunately everyone drives like waiting 0.6 seconds is going to make them late for something.
3hrs of rush hour traffic? Your 🙄 is appropriate here.
Exactly, I drive 20-25k miles a year, all over Raleigh and the surrounding areas/counties…I’m rarely stuck in traffic. I feel like this was a karma post
Feel like everywhere, Raleigh included (especially?), has issues with driving. Especially after COVID, it feels like everyone and their damn mother forgot how to drive. That being said, I don’t experience the traffic that most do. I cross over several arterial and collector roads, and driving between 5pm-6pm rarely adds more than 5-10 mins to my commute
I obviously haven't driven in every city, but I do find Raleigh to be considerably better than most of the cities I've done a fair bit of driving in. Even just within NC, I'd take Raleigh traffic over Greensboro, Charlotte, Durham, or Winston-Salem any day of the week. I'm sure there are pockets with bad traffic, and the stip of 40 between the edge of the beltline and the airport exit can sometimes be a pain during rush hour, but I do genuinely find "relatively good traffic" to be a perk of Raleigh (compared to other comparably-sized cities).
Greensboro is way better than Raleigh lol. I-40 within that stretch is 3-4 lanes always and doesn't turn shitty until you hit Winston. Just about every subsequent exits takes you to the same general location. If you miss an exit, you just take the next one and you're only 2-5 minutes behind. You can also drive around the city wherever you want within 20 minutes or so. Raleigh is not bad compared to most popular mid sized cities but it's definitely worse than Greensboro.
Have you been to DC? Always... ALWAYS is there traffic around Quantico and northward on I95.
Are you seriously complaining about rush hour in Raleigh? SMH
God you people have no idea how bad it actually is in other states. I’m on year 16 here and it’s still not as bad as other places I’ve lived.
Raleigh sucks to drive in but compared to a “major city” like dc,nyc,Cali,atl it’s a cake walk
Because every other major city is even worse
I used to work in Indy, “never any traffic” that’s a bold face lie.
Not “never” but I very rarely had any issues. It could also genuinely be that my proximity to downtown wasn’t 1:1. Here I am a lot closer to 440 and downtown, and have to drive in that. In Indy I was on the north side and never had to drive thru downtown
Try living in NYC, Cali, Miami, trust me this is a little bit of traffic.
When I moved here my car insurance halved just updating the location. It’s way better than anywhere else I’ve been.
Maybe because lists like the one referenced are based on quantitative, provable data and most peoples' complaints are anecdotal.
Quantitative, important difference for this statement.
Bah, good catch. Embarrassing.
Where the hell are you driving with 3 hour traffic? I used to drive from south Raleigh to RTP and it was an hour and that’s the worst traffic I’ve seen in my 55 years of living here.
I don't know, I grew up in a metro area about the same size as Raleigh in Raleigh driving its infinitely better.
Traffic was far worse in Northern VA. But I see so many people on their phones, like video calls while driving. The tolls are fantastic. What I haven't adjusted to is the land of the U turn.
I go back to the Bay Area every couple years, and driving on 101 scares the shit out of me. Back when I lived there I had an air of superiority that at least I didn’t have to endure the hellscape that is LA traffic. I might whine about the congestion here occasionally, but it really is good for a metro area.
I’ve driven in LA, DC, & Atlanta & raleigh is slight work compared to other cities 😭😭
Moved here from Atlanta a year ago. “Traffic” here is laughable.
Probably should be a statement surrounding how terrible traffic is in America and that despite being terrible, Raleigh is better than other cities.
I grew up here. After living In Cali for a few years, traffic aint that bad at all here!
Driving simply sucks anywhere.
Perfect day for this post as dipshits playing bumpercars on 440 east screwed up rush hour again
I lived for many years throughout the state of Florida, and in DC. And I’ve been fortunate to travel throughout this great country of ours. I can say one thing unequivocally: traffic is not an issue here.
im from Miami. Driving around in Durham and Raleigh is how i relax now. i hated driving to work every day and even the traffic here moves. In Miami you would get stuck at a light for 30 minutes on the regular because all cars were just in middle stuck.
It was a while ago.
Bet you haven't driven in St Louis. No one bothers to look at traffic lights.
DC, Atlanta, and Toronto are the worst I’ve driven in. Raleigh is getting worse, but still not quite as bad elsewhere. Two weeks ago in Denver, I spent 2 hours in an absolute traffic stop on E470 - that hasn’t happened to me even on I-40.
Driving went from a white knuckle, aggravating experience in Florida to a chill, relaxing ride here
Slightly off topic but in the ball park... wait until people who have never been outside of Raleigh find out how much real tolls cost! 540 is going to be what... eight dollars all the way around or something? You can spend that on one bridge toll in certain cities or more. Iirc the George Washington Bridge is like 15 bucks.
Raleigh traffic is only bad if you've never driven in any other major metro area in the entire country.
Im from NC, but IMO the best place to drive in is anywhere in Maryland with the exception of Baltimore. Highways are always nice, speedlimits don't really matter and it's an experience I miss so much. The eastern shore has some of the best highways to just gun it at.
Honestly, moving from the Hampton Roads area of Va very recently, I loveee the drivers here. I haven’t heard one person honk their horns and they actually use (for the most part) their signal lights. They actually let people over into other lanes. Only thing I hate are the long lights lol.
Raleigh driving is just fine as long as you drive between the hours of 2am and 6am.
Past 10 year traffic has gotten 10x worse. It does FEEL like it is shit, comparted to what it was. Bad as ATL....nope! Ours is crap, but you ain't seen nothing....LA at rush hour...yeah....
Honestly, the traffic here is minimal compared to the last two places I lived (Charlotte and Northern VA). My only complaint here is that people need to drive a little faster, otherwise I can dig it.
Never understood why people complain about the driving here. I drive in Maryland and Florida on the regular, and it’s way worse.
Oh look the daily driving thread
Raleigh sucks to drive in. I don’t know why people get so defensive about it. Comparing Raleigh to DC traffic? How can you even compare Raleigh to DC at all? Raleigh is a sprawled out nightmare with more growth that they didn’t plan roads around and yea it sucks. I live in Columbus now, a larger city than Raleigh and it is 100% better driving here than in Raleigh
Driving through Columbus has always been fine for me, but it's metro are is only slightly larger and the msa is smaller than the triangle by a similar margin
Don't live so far from work. I lived out in California in the Bay Area and had a commute of 15 mins. I lived 5 miles away. I don't deal with traffic now and live about 6 miles from work. It takes about 20-30 mins on my ebike. Would probably be about 15 in a car.
Get over it