Highway traffic, which plunged during coronavirus shutdown, now starting to rebound
Published 10:00 am Monday, May 18, 2020
- Aerial footage of what would typically be rush hour on I-5 through downtown Portland on March 25, amid the coronavirus outbreak.
SALEM — Oregon highway traffic plunged more than 40% in the weeks after the coronavirus outbreak hit the state, with roads nearly deserted.
The latest data from the Oregon Department of Transportation shows that thousands of cars are returning to the roads, though nowhere near the volumes they were at before the outbreak hit.
Average weekday traffic on 13 heavily traveled Oregon highways and freeways was 300,000 vehicles the week school closures began in March, according to the transportation department. That’s down from a weekday average of 376,000 vehicles the same week a year earlier.
Volumes kept falling, to a weekday average of 217,000 vehicles from March 30 to April 5, shortly after the state’s stay-home order kicked in — a 42% decline. Traffic fell off even more sharply on weekends, dropping as much as 60% immediately following the stay-home order.
In recent weeks, though, the highways have been considerably busier — at least on weekdays. Weekday traffic volumes climbed near 270,000 in early May, down just 25% from a year earlier.
What’s going on? One clue is that weekend traffic volumes haven’t picked up much at all — they’re still down about 50% from 2019, according to the most recent data. So it may be that recreational travel hasn’t increased much, if at all.
And public transit is still down 67% from February.
It may be business travel that’s increasing. Though there has been no indication that laid-off Oregonians are getting back to work, businesses may be adapting to the pandemic — shipping and receiving more products and sending drivers on the road more often.
“It is very difficult to speculate as to the reasons for the recent uptick or change in driver behavior,” said Lou Torres, with the transportation department. “I will say that we should expect some gradual upticks in the weeks and months ahead as Oregon reopens.”
That could be a positive sign for the state’s economy, which will have a long road to get back where it started.
This article was originally published by the The Oregonian/OregonLive, one of more than a dozen news organizations throughout the state sharing their coverage of the novel coronavirus outbreak to help inform Oregonians about this evolving heath issue.
