When I leave work I usually take 540 instead of 440, even though the drive is 5-10 minutes longer, because the traffic is light and its a more enjoyable drive. Yesterday I was running late and jumped on 440 instead. Turns out 440 was crawling from at least the Capital Blvd exit to Wade Avenue, I suspect because of the 40 West exit being closed.

I would have seen this coming and avoided 440 if I had checked the traffic layer on Google Maps before heading out. The thing is though that I don't really want to check the traffic every morning and evening to see if there is heavy traffic that day.

Ideally I would like a service that I entered a particular route and time in advance, and then I received an email if that route had congestion at that time. Does anything even remotely similar exist? As I was typing this I ran across traffic.com and I'm starting to try it out. Any opinions would be great.

3/16/2011 1:12:17 PM

wral.com

3/16/2011 1:26:14 PM

http://twitter.com/#!/wraltraffic

maybe you can set something up on one of these sites:
http://www.beatthetraffic.com/ajax/traffic/map.aspx?regionid=25&viewname=Raleigh+Durham
http://www.traffic.com/Raleigh-Durham-Traffic/Raleigh-Durham-Traffic-Reports.html
http://www.wral.com/traffic/

3/16/2011 1:27:14 PM

the new google maps on android is supposed to be able to route you around traffic, i don't know anyhting about the implementation though

3/16/2011 1:30:32 PM

^ That will work great for times when I am already using the Google Navigation function to get me around. The need I am trying to fill is for daily commutes where I want a Go/No Go decision without much screen time.

I set up email alerts for 440 traffic using traffic.com. It doesn't monitor my portion of 540 or US1, but it did let me set up specific times to send out traffic conditions on 440.

The service that supplies the WRAL map, BeatTheTraffic, looks like its a $20 a year fee to get alerts for specific routes. Might be worth it if they will alert me to congestion on US1 up to Wake Forest.

[Edited on March 16, 2011 at 1:41 PM. Reason : .]

3/16/2011 1:37:50 PM