Seattle is bracing for more nightmarish traffic as Amazon workers return to the office full time, reports KUOW.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in September announced a back-to-office mandate to be “better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business.”
That change started last Thursday, but Amazon’s Seattle campus was still quiet, likely due to the holiday.
“What we might see is sort of a slow ramp up,” Ryan Avery with the University of Washington’s transportation center told KIRO Newsradio Thursday.
Amazon employs about 50,000 workers at its Seattle headquarters, according to a report last year from the Puget Sound Business Journal.
When the ecommerce giant in 2023 asked all employees to come back to the office three days a week, traffic was impacted immediately, according to KIRO Newsradio traffic and transportation reporter Chris Sullivan.
“The return of Amazon workers to Seattle for three days a week has blown our commutes out of the water,” Sullivan wrote in May 2023.
The average speed on westbound State Route 520 dropped by 28% during weekdays and by 38% on Interstate 90 West, according to Inrix, a firm that studies traffic.
Jennifer Garcia, who sells hand-painted t-shirts and hats from a stall called Galaxy Wear in the Pike Place Market, told JUOW that traffic “from the south up north to Seattle” is “bad already.”
"So, I'm going to assume it's going to get really bad."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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