Friday, November 20, 2009

WSDOT Says Prepare Before You Drive

The Washington State Department of Transportation says, if you're travelling next week for the holiday, take your chains... and your patience. A news release just sent out says forecasts are calling for calm weather next week, meaning more drivers may brave Washington's highways for the Thanksgiving weekend.

Here are some of the highlights from WSDOT's historical data about holidays, winter, and driving:

- Thanksgiving is the busiest holiday weekend of the year for I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass and the section of I-5 south of Olympia through Lewis County. Congestion is expected along the I-5 corridor from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday, on eastbound I-90 from 3-5 p.m. Wednesday and on westbound I-90 from 1-7 p.m. Sunday.

- US 2 traditionally sees an increase of traffic on the Friday following Thanksgiving.

- Transit systems follow a holiday schedule on Thanksgiving Day, so plan accordingly.

Any other holiday travel information you could possibly imagine can be found at this link on the WSDOT website.

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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.