For those who are not familiar with this fact, Seattle has a huge traffic issue. During rush hours, it can literally take 45 minutes to go 1/2 a mile to enter the on ramp to I-5. The issue is almost all major jobs are located in the same area, downtown, so everyone has to journey one of the two major aortae, I-5 or I-90, to get there. This in turn has drove living quarters around the downtown area through the roof because, well, who wants to drive over 2 hours a day to go to your shitty job?

Anyway, this week Seattle is experiencing something known as the ‘Seattle Squeeze’; a 3-week long project where the city is tearing down the iconic Alaskan Viaduct (a major highway-ish road that connects west and south Seattle directly to downtown that overlooks the Puget Sound) and re-roading this area to include a tunnel and other various roadways to enter downtown.

Why is this being down? One word: earthquakes. An earthquake would absolutely demolish this viaduct, so safer driving is needed.

And this is true; there is no doubt that the Alaskan Viaduct, albeit beautiful and awesome, is needed to be…say….downsized.

But now through these 3 weeks, we all in the Emerald City have to live through the Seattle Squeeze!!

The city has been trying to prepare people for this 3-week event for over a year. The hype of this has been slowly crescendoing and has hit its apogee this Monday. The city has been pleading with their citizens such things like ‘be careful’, ‘brace yourself’, ‘use vacation time if you have it’, ‘work at home’, etc. Side note: I find it insulting that the city’s official word to their people is ‘use vacation time’ and ‘work at home’. That is not a solution; that is a government completely in disarray and has no solution.

So you may ask two questions:

1. Does the Seattle Squeeze affect me?

2. Is is that bad?

Well, to answer 1., it does tremendously. I take the Viaduct every day for work and this pretty much destroys my commute.

To answer 2., it is. Constant updates on my phone about the commute, continuous warnings about drive times flood my local newsfeed.

So what is my solution: I moved.

Yes my friends, I moved. I told you last time that the homeless rule this town, so when you can’t beat them, join them.

I have pitched my proverbial tent to an area near a few other tents that remove me from this Squeeze.

Now my commute time is 15 minutes.

Once the Squeeze is over (they say 3 weeks……..yeah right), I may return back to my former life. I may not. It depends on how this goes. But for now, fuck off Seattle government! I’m going homeless!