msbat

John Hawkins Parkway/150 is the main strip (to me, anyway) through Hoover that passes just by the Galleria mall and the new-ish shopping center known as Patton Creek. During rush hour, it's really, truly not a lot of fun to drive on this road. During off-hours, however, it's quite pleasant if you're looking for a great place to eat and shop. I recommend stopping by the Barnes & Noble at Patton Creek then walking down the nice sidewalk to Ben & Jerry's!
Also, John Hawkins is a useful road if you're looking for a shortcut/non-highway route to HWY 31 (I go from 280 to backroads thru to John Hawkins and 31 just to dodge driving on I65!). There's a lot of hustle and bustle, but it's great for college students.

University Blvd, also known as 8th Street, is aptly named because of its connection to UAB. I went to UAB for college and after a while I did all I could to avoid driving on University because of the insane amount of slow and/or generally annoying traffic that plows through there during the working days. Mostly the problems were due to everyone parking on the street/in the right lanes, and also due to the unfortunate people trying just to navigate around the giant hub that is the UAB hospital and related healthcare buildings.
Seriously, if you can at all avoid University, do it! Go around. Downtown is pretty sticky, traffic-wise, but to me, University is just too much. It is really convenient, location-wise, to the highway and to all things UAB-related, but it's best to go the long way around, just to avoid all the confused drivers trying their darndest to find a parking spot!

As you might imagine, Summit Blvd is named as such because, well, it's home to the great, wonderful, lovely Summit "mall". It is the center of all high-end retail in Birmingham these days. Boasting Saks Fifth Avenue, Coach, Bromberg's, Urban Outfitters, and much more, Summit Blvd is a heaven for those in need of some serious retail therapy.
Besides the great shops, there's also TONS of restaurants to choose from up there, but I will warn you that most of them are rather pricey. The only two cheap-ish places are Panera Bread and Zoe's Kitchen (which is really, really good!). If you're out for a special occasion, there are several great reservation-type places like Flemings and P.F. Chang's. There's also a movie theater and a grocery store, all of this packed into less than a mile!
If you're really brave and looking for a new apartment, there's actually a large apartment complex located directly around the Summit--in fact, the only access to these apartments is through Summit Blvd, if I'm not mistaken. They're pretty nice, but rather pricey and really, it would stink to live there during the holidays when traffic is, frankly, quite insane!

When I started college, I had an apartment just off HWY 31 in the Vestavia area. For a major road that connects pretty much all the major highways in Birmingham, the traffic is surprisingly moderate. Especially when compared to 280, I personally call 31 "mini-280" because it's got about half the traffic and about half the retail/food opportunities. During rush hour it's all relative, but it's much easier to handle than 280.
31 will take you anywhere from the Galleria to downtown...and beyond. It's a lot like 280 where the shops and restaurants are right off the road, so it's good for people driving through who don't want to worry about getting lost trying to find some lunch!

Green Valley Road is most easily described as "you know, the road that goes through Whole Foods", but there's so much more to it than that. I never even realized until I went driving past Whole Foods one day that the road even went anywhere useful. And actually, it does. If you keep on going, you'll find that it passes through Crosshaven and becomes White Oak Drive, which then dumps you right into Cahaba Heights/around the Summit.
This street is actually very scenic, starting in Mountain Brook and then Vestavia Hills, there are many older, prominent houses and condos all along the road, and it's a great place to settle down if you want to live "off" 280 but still close to all the shops and conveniences of the city. It's pretty quiet and has a "set apart" feel that allows you to walk your dog on the sidewalk without worrying about getting hit by high-speed traffic! It's something to be treasured in Birmingham, really.

It wasn't until I moved to the Birmingham area that I even realized there was a useful "area" behind the Summit. If you turn into Summit Blvd and keep on driving, it becomes Crosshaven Drive. Crosshaven is a nifty little street (and I mean little, it's pretty narrow) that runs through the heart of Cahaba Heights and eventually meets Overton Road.
Just off Crosshaven is a fair selection of knick-knack-type shops, coffee shops (including the hidden local treasure, Primavera Coffee Roasters), and several grocery stores such as Publix and Whole Foods. It's a great street, sprinkled with older apartments/townhouses and single-family homes. Even during the busiest hours of the day, it maintains a steadily moving flow of medium traffic. My only real complaint is the traffic lights--you can tell they were put there back when there wasn't much traffic, meaning there aren't actual left-turn arrows so there's often clogs of people having to yield on green. Not a big deal if you're patient.

Since moving to Birmingham, I've found lots of creative ways to avoid driving on the interstates as much as possible during heavy traffic hours. One of those roads I've found is Cahaba Valley, also known as HWY 119. I often travel from Birmingham to Pell City, and because I live close to Cahaba Valley, often I will take it through to Leeds and then hop on i20 from there, cutting my interstate time down tremendously. It even connects to 459 via Grants Mill Road.
Cahaba Valley is a reasonably quiet street, until you get towards Pelham and Hoover, then it gets a little crowded. But towards Leeds/i20, it's actually very scenic and pretty (especially during Fall when all the leaves have changed. Yes, there are real trees on this street!). It has a lot of subdivisions tucked away on side streets, and towards Leeds it has a lot of older houses, horse farms, and schools. On the Birmingham end of things, it's got a few places of note to visit (Edgars Bakery just opened up in Meadowbrook), and it runs through the hustle and bustle of the Oak Mountain area. It's a pleasant street, and convenient, which is a rarity in Birmingham.

From Highway 280, Valleydale Road just looks like some little off-street with no real end in sight. But it's actually a great short-cut during rush hour if you want to get to Hoover (towards the Galleria) but don't want to go all the way to 459. Valleydale is also a good way to hop onto i65.
Towards the 280 end of Valleydale, there's lots of places to eat and a few good stores to browse. There's even a donut shop! Also on Valleydale is the Shelby campus of Jeff State, which boasts a very pretty quad and a very peaceful park/lake. There's also a lot of suburb-type houses along the road.
My main gripe about Valleydale is the school-time traffic. In the morning and at 3pm during the week, expect a long wait. Oh, and watch out for the Troopers. They LOVE to give tickets if you're going even a teeny bit over the limit. Seriously. I learned this the hard way! Heh.

When I started college, my first apartment was located on Lakeshore. It's a great street for college students, because it's close to the nearby schools (UAB, Samford), and there's lots of places to eat sprinkled all around Lakeshore (including the Brookwood Mall, which has tons of newish restaurants). Lakeshore runs just under 280 and 31, passing over i65 one way and going through historic Mountain Brook in the other direction. The traffic is typical for a city, but rush hour can get a little sticky towards 65. It is FAR better than 280 and 31, however. Lakeshore is, to me, along the "safer" edges of Homewood. I didn't ever get scared driving on it by myself at night like I do on 31. It's a quiet street, but still in "the city" so everything is convenient, just the way I like it.

I have grown up driving through or around 280 for my entire life--but only until a couple of years ago did I not have to drive on it daily (I live in an apartment just off the highway). And boy, does it get old FAST! Sure, there are tons upon tons of places to eat and shop, but the traffic...is a disaster! Rush hour? is really much longer than an hour (I would avoid it from 4pm-7:30pm if at all possible.). For some reason, the vast majority of drivers on 280 are very rude, don't know how to use a turn signal, and there are DAILY fender-benders that clog traffic. I am not kidding. It is a nightmare!
There are some good things about 280. Shopping is great. There are coffee shops every few blocks and once you know where you're going, you will learn the "back roads" that might help you in getting where you're going with a little less stress. Some people are very nice and let you over. It's just best to be at full attention while driving on 280, as it is so dangerous.