The study proposed for the I-5, U.S. 2 interchange may find what I have observed empirically (“Everett wants look at I-5, U.S. 2 interchange options,” The Herald, July 6). I-5 northbound congestion seems to be aggravated by those who get into the outside “exit only” lanes to sneak back into northbound traffic at the most penultimate point before they actually have to exit. This just compounds the squeeze caused by the “sleight-of-lane” occurring where the outside HOV lane disappears, and where heavy traffic is entering on the inside from U.S.2 and Everett Avenue.
It might be hard to enforce, but making it illegal to get into the “exit only” lanes, and then not exiting might be one way to curtail some of the slowdown. Of course, the biggest factor in all of this is how I-5 was initially done on the cheap by designing interchanges where entering traffic has to cross and interweave with exiting traffic. Had fully developed interchanges, such as cloverleaf, been used in the first place we wouldn’t be dealing with these problems now.
Thomas J. Munyon
Marysville
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