Want to spend your weekend stuck in traffic? Go watch the eclipse
Aug 18, 2017, 7:42 AM | Updated: 9:45 am
If you like 30-mile backups, do we have a vacation spot for you: the “path of totality” of Monday’s eclipse.
Where, and how, to watch the solar eclipse
Traffic is already a problem in Central Oregon due to thousands of people arriving in advance of the total eclipse.
On Thursday, traffic was backed up on Highway 26 west of Prineville, the last town before the exit for a festival that could attract at least 30,000 people.
Gas stations along the route were reportedly running out of fuel mid-week.
Transportation departments in Washington state and Oregon have warned travelers that traffic will most likely be worse than they expect. That is because there is just an approximate 60-to-70 mile area of Central Oregon that will be within the eclipse’s path of totality. Backups are expected in both states before and after the eclipse as thousands of people try to cruise in and out of the area.
“We are expecting 1 million people on August 21,” Oregon State Department of Transportation’s Dave Thompson previously told KIRO Radio. “That’s a lot of folks, a lot of cars and if people treat this like a Game Day, they are not going to have a good experience.”
It is the first coast-to-coast solar eclipse in the country since 1918. It’s also the first to hit any portion of the U.S. mainland since 1979, The Associated Press reports.
