WASHINGTON — Millions of travelers braved getaway traffic delays in the days before Thanksgiving. But what “gets away” must eventually come back.
Homebound delays are likely to plague some drivers on Sunday afternoon and evening as the long weekend draws to a close.
Traffic flow data — gathered by INRIX, a company that specializes in traffic intelligence — was provided to WTOP courtesy of the Metropolitan Area Transportation Operations Coordination Program and researchers at the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory at University of Maryland.
It is normal for northbound weekend traffic on Interstate 95 to slow toward Fredericksburg, Virginia. but the data show that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is about twice as bad as the typical Sunday slog.
Over the last few years, peak drive times on I-95, between I-295 in Richmond, Virginia and I-495 in Springfield, Virginia, have ranged from two to three hours. The slowest drives were recorded between noon and 8 p.m. On a typical autumn Sunday afternoon, it takes drivers less than two hours to complete the same trip after working through recurring congestion in Spotsylvania and Stafford counties.
On I-95, between the Baltimore Beltway and the Capital Beltway, southbound drivers began incurring delays around 2 p.m. on the Sundays after Thanksgiving. The slowest drive times were observed around 5 p.m., when the normally 20-minute drive took closer to 30 minutes.
Significant Sunday slowdowns were observed on Interstate 270 in Frederick County, Maryland. In all three years, southbound traffic began experiencing volume delays after 3 p.m. The 34-mile-long drive between Interstate 70 and I-495 took close to an hour in 2012 and 2013. The section of the interstate known as the “Technology Corridor” between Md. Route 85 and Md. Route 80 often plays host to lane-blocking crashes, which can further slow homebound travelers.
It’s not all bad news. The homebound effect is not as pronounced on U.S. Route 50 west of the Bay Bridge or on I-66 from Front Royal to the Beltway. The data show no significant delays on these east-west routes toward the Washington area.
A visualization of the data is available here.
