Amazon is urging all employees to return to the office full-time, five days a week, now as those workers head back to the office. Officials at the company's base in Seattle are warning that the policy could impede local traffic.
Local news agency Fox 13 Just interviewed Public transportation officials say the policy will affect traffic flow. Amazon has about 50,000 employees in Seattle alone. And all those people had to travel. “There's going to be more people commuting,” said Aisha Dayal of the Washington State Department of Transportation. Dayal added that local drivers should give themselves extra time to get to work. and encourage them to use the state's free traffic monitoring tool. “We have a lot of resources…on our website,” Dayal said, adding that the state has a free app that offers them. “Real-time traffic information for citizens”
Another local news website, K5, mentions Ryan Avery, deputy director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington. As you say He felt Amazon's policy would “challenge traffic.”
Fox 13 also referenced this earlier. Published studies that claims Amazon's return-to-work policies have fueled regional traffic slowdowns in the Seattle area; The report, by analytics firm INRIX, claims that Amazon's first Return to Office policy caused traffic to slow down by 35% on some local routes. The report noted:
Seattle's case is not like many other cities. and central business districts around the world Employers looking to bring people back into the office will increase VMT, reducing parking stress. and ultimately will reduce travel speed. If the speed decreases Drivers must sit in traffic jams, wasting time, money and fuel, causing congestion.
When reached for comment, Amazon said it offers employees a variety of benefits and services for office travel. It also emphasized that employees in Seattle are required to be in the office three days a week. Therefore, a full-time RTO policy does not necessarily reflect the unprecedented influx of passengers.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has announced a global return to office policy. Blog post in September Demands for all of the company's approximately 350,000 employees to return to full-time office work have provoked strong reactions. Including protests. from workers accustomed to the flexible work-from-home policies that have characterized the pandemic. Amazon recently Decided to delay the enactment of this policy in many large cities This is because there is not enough office space for returning employees.