Thanksgiving Travel Set To Trigger Bay Area Afternoon Traffic Gridlock
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- The traffic experts issued a warning for Bay Area Thanksgiving travelers -- time your getaway to avoid local freeways from 2-4 p.m. on Wednesday.
Those words of wisdom come from the California AAA and the traffic experts at INRIX, which released it's annual survey of the worst times to hit the roadways on one of the busiest travel days of the year. The survey estimates that 49.3 million travelers will be taking to the roadways this holiday weekend.
"With record levels of travelers, and persistent population growth in the country's major metropolitan areas, drivers must prepare for major delays," said Trevor Reed, transportation analyst at INRIX. "Although travel times will peak on Wednesday afternoon nationally, travelers should expect much heavier than normal congestion throughout the week."
In San Francisco, the traffic experts predict it will take you an additional three-hours-plus to reach your destination if you chose to travel on local roadways between 2-4 p.m.
If you are traveling to Los Angeles, try to avoid arriving on local freeways from 5-7 p.m. when it will take you 3 1/2 extra hours.
Crowded roadways won't be the only challenge holiday motorists face this Thanksgiving weekend. A series of potent storms have dumped more than a foot of snow on the mountain passes on Highway 50 and I-80 in the Sierra and on I-5 at the the Grapevine north of Los Angeles and along the California-Oregon border. A second, stronger storm was predicted to roar into California over the weekend.
Heavy snow was falling on the Grapevine area early Wednesday with the California Highway Patrol slowing traffic and warning that it may be forced to shutdown the freeway if the conditions deteriorated further.
Caltrans said that I-5 toward the California-Oregon border was shutdown for several hours early Wednesday between Yreka and Redding due to "an extremely large number of vehicles spun out along the interstate."
The southbound lanes of the busy freeway were reopened around 8:15 a.m., but Caltrans had no estimate on the reopening of the northbound lanes. Some drivers reportedly spent 17 hours or more in their cars.
Christina Williams of Portland and her 13-year-old son got stuck in the storm as they tried to drive to the San Francisco area for Thanksgiving.
Williams says she connected via Twitter with others stranded around her using weather-related hashtags, sharing information on conditions in other parts of the backup. She says "there were spin-outs everywhere" and abandoned trucks. Williams says she began to wonder if they would have to spend the night in their car.
She said it took them more than 17 hours to reach Redding where they got a hotel room. That journey would usually take at least 10 hours less.
Meanwhile in the Sierra, a popular Thanksgiving holiday getaway for Bay Area travelers, snow continued to fall early Wednesday turning Pollack Pines in the foothills into a wintry wonderland but triggering a nightmare commute on Highway 50. Chain controls were in effect from Twin Bridges to Meyers.
The CHP said I-80 westbound was closed due early Wednesday due to multiple spin outs between Truckee and Nyack. Traffic was moving eastbound, but chains were required.