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On any given work day, I have nearly two hours of commute (round trip) time. Yeah, I can feel your groans. I do it too. To be honest, the commute is the worst part of my job and if I could not do it and make the same income I would change in a heartbeat. But, it is what it is.
So, I have been using the Waze app to see if it can help alleviate the commute time a little. Supposedly it is “real time” traffic routing based on user reports. It is owned by Google, so all it does it take the traffic reports and move it to a different app instead of the regular Google Maps app. Anyway, I am not sure it is helping.
Why is it not helping? Or at least, why do I not think it is helping? Well, it takes me just as long to get home when I use it and when I don’t use it. By time it routes be down some obscure neighborhood road, or through every traffic light in town, it has taken me roughly the same amount of time to get to the exact same choke point at just going the most direct route, via the highway where all the other cars are sitting in traffic. Maybe it is just the nature of the necessary route to get home (there are literally only two ways to get home via two choke points). But, one would think that you could at least get to the choke point a little faster using the app. Not so.
Anyone else have a similar experience?
#trafficiskillingme #smh
Piss and Moan 
I live in Phoenix. My commute is a bit shorter than yours, about 35-40 minutes each way. With all the parallel surface streets here, there are potentially hundreds of ways to get to and from work. I tried Waze for two weeks. Other than getting a heads-up on upcoming slowdowns, it wasn’t especially useful. It made little difference in my commute time, and it introduced an unnecessary distraction on my dashboard.
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Hey, Curt, thanks for the feedback! Your comment really makes me wonder now…if you don’t have the same kind of choke points but can’t really determine that there was a noticeable different in time spent on the road, well, that kind of gives me pause. I have often wondered if I was imagining it or not. I look over at the other roads and see them moving and I just think, “Why am I not over there?” LOL Maybe it is a case of the “The grass is always greener…”
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