FILE: Gridlocked traffic on I-80 near the Appian Way on-ramp in October 2019.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Transportation data company Inrix released its annual forecast with AAA for the year-end holiday travel period between Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, and Monday, Jan. 1, 2024. The 10-day period is expected to see nearly 104 million people on the road — a slight uptick from last year’s numbers and a little short of the record in 2019 when 108 million drivers were tallied on the road.
Unsurprisingly, the Bay Area’s Interstate 80 is predicted to see the worst gridlock. Inrix anticipates it will take an estimated 1 hour 49 minutes to drive eastbound from San Francisco to Sacramento on Dec. 23 at 5:15 p.m., the predicted peak congestion period.
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Those roughly 80 miles between the cities already take about 90 minutes to travel on a normal day, in SFGATE’s experience, and Inrix said to expect a 73% increase in travel time.
If traveling to Sacramento on Saturday, to avoid the parking-lot highway, plan to leave San Francisco by 10 a.m. if possible.
Inrix predicts the best and worst times to travel by car and noted that an additional 2.5 million travelers are on the road in 2023 compared with last year.
Courtesy of INRIXElsewhere in the state, Inrix predicts that Interstate 5 from Bakersfield to Los Angeles will be slammed on Wednesday, Dec. 27, at 6:15 p.m., with an expected travel time of 2 hours and 41 minutes — a 50% increase, the data company said.
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I-80 not only has worst increase of traffic for the state but according to Inrix, it’s the worst increase across the entire country. It’s the only freeway expected to have more than a 70% increase in travel time compared with a typical day. The next-biggest increases in traffic are expected southbound on the Baltimore–Washington Parkway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and driving south from Fort Collins to Denver on Interstate 25, both of which are predicted to see a 67% increase.
Inrix added that this year should see the highest number of people traveling by bus, train and cruise. AAA said that more than 4 million Americans are expected to take alternative transportation this holiday — a boost from 3.66 million in 2022 and 3.89 million in 2019.
