Just A Fair Warning: Bay Area Traffic Is About To Be WORSE Post-Shutdown

By kmvq on May 7, 2020

MILL VALLEY, CA – DECEMBER 03: Cars sit in miles-long traffic jam on southbound highway 101 as they approach a flooded section of the freeway on December 3, 2014 in Mill Valley, California. The San Francisco Bay Area is being hit with its first major storm of the year that is bringing heavy rain, lightning and hail to the region. The heavy overnight rain has caused flooding which has blocked several roadways and caused severe traffic backups. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

As thing are starting calm down (a little) residents are starting to think about eventually getting back to work. But with social distancing, many may choose to avoid crowded BART trains, Muni buses and even carpools and instead opt to get to work in their own vehicles. A new study reveals how this may affect Bay Area traffic in a very bad way.

Vanderbilt University conducted a research that projects a dramatic rise in traffic in the Bay Area caused by a rush to single-occupancy vehicles after the shutdown. It could potentially increase the morning commute alone by up to 42 minutes with San Francisco getting hit the hardest – a whopping 556,000–2,736,000 added traffic hours per day spent commuting, or 20–80 minutes per person round trip.

The model of this study also predicts a range of scenarios and ideas that if “just 1 in 4 transit & carpool commuters driving alone, San Francisco could see a one-way travel time increase of 10 minutes per person. If three in four riders changed their commutes to cars, commute times would increase by 42 minutes.”

Let’s hope work places will give employers a mandatory “work-from-home” requirement so we can tackle this issue that could potentially be on the rise.