I’ve lived in Oregon for a while now (although I still refuse to
call myself an Oregonian) and all throughout, I’ve lived on the west
side of town.

With the exception of my first job, all of my other jobs have been
on the east side of town. This is good and it’s also bad. I love the
west side of town, but that’s just because I’ma ‘burb boy and that’s
all I’ve really known. The bad is US Highway 26.US Highway 26 is the
freeway that runs from the west side of town to the east side of town
is US Highway 26.

Historically, and I’m only counting since I’ve been here (~ 1997),
US Highway 26 (referred to as 26 from here on out), has been a complete
disaster.

If you wereheading east bound after work, you could expect to see a
complete clusterfuck of traffic before the first off ramp (the zoo off
ramp). To make this easier for people that don’t live here to
understand, I’ve grabbed some satellite images from google. Here is the
first image, which is what I was just describing.

That’s a terrible place for a slow down considering that you still
havevery long ways to go to get to the where the bulk of the burbs are
as evident by the next two images here and here.

What does this have to do with Vancouver? Well, since Vancouver has
been “the place” to live 26 no longer slows at image 1, it actually
slows down at image 3. Image 2 is just a filler to give you a scope of size.

That’s great for me. Unfortunately, the traffic has just shifted
somewhere else because I5 North is a complete disaster and is
un-drivable until approximately 7-8 PM.

Thanks Vancouverites!