At mid-afternoon Tuesday – the first full day of traffic in Maple Leaf with the 15th Avenue Northeast bridge closed – Roosevelt Way southbound was a solid line of slow-moving cars from Northeast 88th Street to Northeast 75 Street.
That’s dozens of cars stacked up from Cloud City Coffee to the Safeway at 75th. And well before rush hour.
gb – cutting through a neighborhood street might be a great alternative for you but it sucks if that happens to be your street. By the time a driver makes that decision, their blood pressure is rising and they drive at speeds that are dangerous. Soon we will have bumper to bumper traffic on streets that were not designed for it. Great.
What blows my mind is why everyone seems to think they have to hop on Roosevelt. Yes, the bridge on 15th is closed, but unless you live on the north side of said bridge, 15th is still very usable… you just have to plan ahead, and not be afraid of taking a few extra turns.
Tuesday morning was atrocious, but only on Roosevelt. We met a huge backup, but with a little rerouting, we jumped over to 5th, and it was smooth sailing. I’m thinking far too many people are defaulting to Roos. as their only alternative route, but hopefully they’ll figure things out in short order.
And turning left onto Roosevelt is now much more difficult because of the increased traffic!