How much traffic does your street get?

On average about how many cars would you say your street gets in a five minute period? I would say ours gets about 5 cars every 5 minutes give or take the time of day. I grew up in a fairly rural area so that seems like a lot to me for a residential street. The good news is that it's very quiet at night.

I'm just curious if this is typical for M/SO or if we happened to buy on a busier residential street.

what street are you on

That seems low to me, but I live on a commuter street. So we are constant throughout the day.

I would take 5 cars every 5 minutes any day. We, unfortunately before we bought the place, were not told that our street was one of the most convenient routes from Ridgewood to Wyoming. Whenever I back out I can count on waiting on a couple cars to pass. Still much better than some other options and we love the neighborhood.

We're around the Park/S. Pierson/Broadview area. I know I should expect some traffic given we're in between Valley and Springfield. If I ever decide to buy again, I'm not sure I would buy off of Valley. Don't get me wrong, I love the house and my neighbors are great. However, I still second guess myself as to whether there's a quieter area of MW/SO I could've bought in my price range.

A dead end will be quiet. In these days of Waze, through streets will always have traffic unless you manage to get a "do not enter between 7-9 and 4-6" sign.

Construction on Valley St may be causing more than usual traffic on your street. But NJ is a traffic congested state, especially in this area. You either need to move to a cul de sac or consider moving to a less congested area. Sorry.

mrmaplewood said:

Construction on Valley St may be causing more than usual traffic on your street. But NJ is a traffic congested state, especially in this area. You either need to move to a cul de sac or consider moving to a less congested area. Sorry.

I grew up in NJ so I'm well aware of how congested it is. I'm simply trying to figure out Maplewood/SO. But thanks for the patronizing "sorry."

Actually I lived on a dead end in South Orange for 11 years. Dead ends can have a surprising amount of traffic!

Two points that you may not realize. First, every car that drives up on a dead end has to come down because there is no other way out so, for example, if there are 30 homes, each with two cards, there are 60 trips up and down the street every day, often bunched at the start and end of the day. Second, when people accidentally turn onto the street, even thought there is a large "DEAD END" sign at the foot of the street, they travel up and then use a driveway to turn around. Our house had the second driveway on the left when you entered Glenside. It was an appealing place to turn evidently because once I counted 7 cars pull into our driveway, pull out and go back down the street in 15 minutes. Or maybe the moral is don't be the second driveway on the left....

RobB said:

A dead end will be quiet. In these days of Waze, through streets will always have traffic unless you manage to get a "do not enter between 7-9 and 4-6" sign.

Sure, you can find "quieter" areas within M/SO in terms of traffic. Going further into Golf Island is one example, areas of Montrose in S.O. are quiet. There are neighborhoods near schools such as Clinton that are busy during school "rush hour" and very quiet at other times, which is the vast majority of the day. Side streets between Prospect and Academy. However, you have to weigh with that distance from transit (if that is relevant to you), schools, downtown(s) etc. If you are only looking at one measure - traffic, size of lot, distance from something - you can always find something better, but you might have to compromise on other factors.

Consider that traffic patterns and volume can change over time. This happened to us. Our relatively quiet [traffic-wise] street, where children would play in the middle of the roadway with little interruption caused by traffic, has gained so much traffic in recent years that neighbors recently circulated a petition trying to get a speed hump installed near their home! This may be due to a sharp increase in traffic volume overall throughout the township, increased activity to/from one or more nearby points of assembly, discovery by some train commuters looking to avoid paying for a parking permit, traffic calming in nearby streets, discovery of the street as a convenient cut through between Prospect Street and Springfield Avenue, or something else entirely. Sometimes, these changes are totally unpredictable.

Come live on N. Wyoming Ave. and then comment on traffic on your street. We moved here from Broadway in Manhattan not knowing what living in the suburbs might be like. Man what a mistake

I live on Academy. At school drop-off/pick-up times, it's like a freeway, and free-for-all. When Valley or Prospect is closed, it's bad!

We rank in the top 10% for population density in NJ (by zip code) and in the top 3% nationally.

Quiet streets are unusual, unless you live on a dead end.