Is there a specific reason us-west-1 is more congested? Is it somehow more desirable, or is it just what people pick because they're on the west coast, and it's first on the list?
us-west-1 only has two availability zones available to new customers (they have three total, but one of them only runs legacy customers). From my experience it is also slower to get new hardware and services.
My personal belief is that running the "region" is far more expensive than running their other regions. Real estate in the bay area is expensive, as is electricity.
