It’s a simple case of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know. That devil is traffic.
Lately, I’ve been steering clear of new trouble spots. I still find myself waiting bumper to bumper, nothing new there. What I’m not doing is getting hot under the collar because some familiar routes, until recently a breeze, are now big snags.
I can’t say for certain that traffic north of Everett is especially awful these days. I haven’t actually seen it for myself, not since the Seattle Premium Outlets mall opened May 5 next to the Tulalip Casino.
“Have you been to the new mall?” That seems to be the question of the season. I have yet to answer yes.
There’s plenty to lure me to the 100-store complex. Boys shoes would top my list. At what point, though, is a bargain I might find on Stride Rite sneakers not worth my time or aggravation? And it’s expensive, sitting with my engine idling.
The I-5 exit at 116th Street NE near the new outlet stores has become a commuter’s headache.
Judy Barkly, who lives near that offramp, recently told The Herald she has seen drivers making unsafe U-turns and blocking intersections. Those tie-ups are exacerbated by construction at the 172nd Street NE exit a few miles north on I-5. An overpass project there is temporarily reducing traffic capacity by half.
A terrible accident Monday in the southbound lanes of I-5 just north of the Highway 529 exit could have happened anywhere. Who can forget drivers stuck for hours on I-5 in Lynnwood after a tanker truck explosion in summer 2003?
Monday’s fiery wreck in the early morning hours killed a driver heading the wrong way on I-5 whose SUV slammed into a tractor-trailer rig. The wreck caused hundreds of people to be late for work.
While it could have been anywhere, it happened to create a huge jam in that north-of-my-house zone I’ve been so purposefully avoiding. It strengthened that growing impulse of mine, the one that says, “Don’t go there.”
Business owners in Snohomish County won’t like reading where I’ve been spending money. On Saturday, I went to the University Book Store in Seattle’s University District.
Oh, I know there’s a new Mill Creek branch of the bookstore, and another at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus. I had textbooks to sell back at the main Seattle store. Anyway, on a no-football Saturday, it’s not a bad drive. While traffic on NE 45th Street in Seattle’s U District is never a breeze, it’s at least predictable – it’s the devil we know, not some new north-of-Marysville nightmare.
Despite all the new retail up here, I bought a new Husky sweat shirt in Seattle.
My fear of devilish gridlock is also messing with recreation plans. I thought of taking my son to our favorite hangout on the beach at Kayak Point County Park last weekend. Traffic anxiety won out. We ended up close to home at an Everett park, with a box of Wheat Thins, happy as could be.
Come to think of it, over the hot Memorial Day weekend, we never considered going north for a swim at Kayak or Gissberg Twin Lakes county parks. We got our feet wet in Lake Washington, again in Seattle, where traffic was uncharacteristically light.
Who knows whether Memorial Day weekend traffic was horrible up north? The mere possibility of a hassle sent me in the opposite direction. The same thing has kept me from crossing the border into Canada since before Sept. 11, 2001.
Maybe people should have seen it coming, the explosion of growth north of Everett. Still, my heart goes out to those who put down roots there in a quest for openness and affordable housing.
I’m feeling lucky. Twenty years ago, we picked a house that’s a 15-block commute from The Herald. When I get stuck in traffic, it’s usually by choice, not necessity.
I will get to that new mall, and back to Kayak Point, and even to Canada. I’ll go once the dust settles. Or maybe it just takes getting acquainted with that devil I don’t know.
In the meantime, all that new business to the north is thriving without me.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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