5 Tips to Beat Traffic in Tampa Bay
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If you ask anyone who has ever lived and worked in the Tampa Bay area for their number one complaint about our wonderful city, chances are their answer will have something to do with the stress-inducing, wall-to-wall traffic that often plagues our roadways. I myself am all too familiar with the sluggishly slow speeds of traffic in and around the city, having made countless trips from North Tampa to downtown and back during the height of rush hour. While heavy traffic is simply the norm when it comes to daily life in Tampa Bay, thankfully there are several actions you can take to outsmart the herd and maybe even prevent the early appearance of a few grey hairs along the way.
- Get an early start. While this may seem obvious, we all know that many of us choose to leave our homes as late as possible while just barely being able to make it to work on time. According to the Tampa Bay Times, nearly 20% of Tampa Bay commuters spend at least 45 minutes on the road during their commute to work. Especially in the morning, the later you leave for work, the worse traffic will be. As early as 7 am, the highways in the Tampa Bay area are already becoming congested. Committing to leaving your home at 6 am will dramatically shorten your commute time. Even if this results in you arriving to work earlier than necessary, this is time that can be spent getting ahead of the curve rather than crawling down the highway with the morning herd.
- Check your navigation apps for slowdowns on your route. Every morning before you leave for work, you can avoid unforeseen traffic jams along your commuting route by checking navigation apps such as Google Maps and Waze. These apps will show you which roadways are congested and even where accidents have occurred. Checking on this before taking to the road will allow you to switch to an alternate route which should lessen the hit to your travel time.
- Follow @tampabaytraffic on Twitter. In addition to checking navigation apps, you can check the regularly posted updates from the ABC Action News traffic Twitter handle. This profile contains information on precise travel times for the most commonly traveled roadways in the Tampa Bay area and is constantly updated throughout the day.
- Skip Starbucks and make your own coffee at home. We all see it. Every morning we drive by any one of the numerous Starbucks locations in the Tampa Bay area and there is usually a not so insignificant line of cars wrapped around the building. That is, unless you happen to be one of those people in that line and, if you are, this tip is for you. While I love my pumpkin spice lattes with extra shots of espresso just as much as the next guy, I simply cannot bring myself to add time to my commute in the morning by sitting in a coffee shop line. Your homemade coffee may or may not be as delicious as the coffee from your favorite shop but making your morning joe at home before leaving for work seems to be a small sacrifice that will result in much time, money, and gas saved.
- Be more productive on your commute. It's almost 2020, people. The days of being confined to the radio or the same old music playlists on our phones are long behind us. While you're stuck in your vehicle on your way to work, you can make better use of your time by finding a good podcast or ebook to listen to. While there are plenty of options that are purely entertainment based, there are also many that are educational and can even further your professional development. The idea here is to reclaim the time that you're forced to lose on the road every day and to leverage it as best as you can.
Do you think there should be more public transportation? How should the city go about making it easy and quicker for people to get to work?
ReplyDeleteNot only is this post highly relatable, but you offer useful tips to make commuting more enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteLove the idea to follow @tampabaytraffic on twitter, because its something I already check in the morning.
ReplyDelete