Suburban traffic presents a few twists

Reverse commuters clog Sunset; Oregon Highway 217 slowest

The Portland Tribune, Sep 12, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

When Bob Applegate heads west on U.S. Highway 26 each afternoon he often sees something that seems a bit backward.

“I will be going home on 26, and if I get out five minutes before 5 instead of five after 5 it’s fairly open driving going west,” Applegate says. “But you see it piled up going in.”

What Applegate has noticed is that the Sunset Highway reverse commute – people who live in Portland and drive to work in Washington County westbound on Highway 26 – is just as bad as its opposite.

His observation is backed up by various transportation officials, who say they are hearing the same. Though the Portland State University Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab hasn’t yet crunched the numbers, Metro has plenty of evidence to support Applegate’s observation.

Between 1970 and 2000 the number of Multnomah County residents who commute daily to Washington County jobs quadrupled to more than 32,000, according to statistics kept by Metro, the regional planning authority.

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