The worst part of Seattle is the left-hand, westbound lane of the Denny Way bridge that spans I-5. The absolute worst time to be on it is at 5:15pm on a summer Friday, inching forward toward the freeway on-ramp below. Dante, you missed a circle.

The reason we try to inch out of the metropolis on Fridays is obvious. Most of us worker drones get only two free days per week, so every minute of a weekend trip is precious. But then why are we spending so many of them in the car? 

My advice: just don't.

Traffic has been a thorn in Seattle's collective paw forever—since tire ruts sank into the mud of pre-paved downtown. But like frogs in a slowly boiling pot, we merely grumbled and bickered about congestion until 2020, when a global pandemic turned everything upside down. Amid the pain and fear, we also saw what—gasp—empty freeways looked like. The idea that speed limits could be approached, that fast lanes could be fast, that Tacoma is just a half hour away (pfft) embedded itself in our collective psyche.

But like so much of the early 2020s, that was all an aberration. Traffic is back, beyond pre-pandemic levels in most cities. It's just short of 2019 here, which means little given how bad it has always been. On Tuesday the Seattle Times reported that we've even added a midday rush hour, one that doesn't even lessen the afternoon one. Local commuters can lose more than 50 hours a year to sitting in traffic, even more if they really think they can get to the beach before sundown on Friday.

I get the temptation. I spend most of my weekends in the wilds of Washington, and I'd rather have two nights under the stars than one. But I've taken to blocking out my Fridays for near-home hangs, even when I could conceivably sneak out a little early without taking PTO (don't read that part, boss).

But the miserable moments on Denny aren't worth it, nor is the jerky start-and-stop through I-5 or I-90's worst stretches. The hours inching through Fife or Marysville are soul-crushing. And checking into an Airbnb or campsite long after dinner hours makes the weekend less fun, not longer.

So I, the consummate weekend warrior and make-the-most-of-it travel fiend, have taken to staying within walking distance on Fridays.

Know what hasn't faded from 2020? All the streetside dining in Seattle's bars and restaurants, the refurbished patios and sidewalk tables. Cute independent shops are still open in early evenings, and the Mariners play at home on a lot of summer Fridays. Once I embraced Fridays in Seattle, I remembered just how much I liked this place.

And come Saturday morning, the on-ramps look something like they did in 2020, mostly empty—and without all the heartbreak of the early pandemic. I still get away for two-day trips, but they're cheaper and somehow better. The car is perfectly packed, not hastily crammed with random gear or luggage I thought to toss in between Friday meetings. I stop for coffee and pastries at roadside bakeries, and the hotel bills are half.

Sundays can be long, home-after-dinner affairs, when traffic is spread out more since we're not all clocking out at the same time. Mondays aren't so scary either, when you have fully wrapped up the Friday workday before the weekend begins.

Paul Thiry, the architect who more or less invented Seattle's look and personally designed what's now Climate Pledge Arena, groused about our I-5 identity back in the 1970s. “It was with the freeway, cutting through the very heart of the city, that Seattle began taking one of its wrong turns and started to lose its identity as a city,” he famously said.

More and more, I advise against that wrong turn. I'm not going to beat traffic—so I'm rediscovering my identity here in Seattle. At least until Saturday.