What you need to know about holiday travel on I-5, I-90, and more

I say this every holiday, but it is really the only absolute when it comes to traffic. To avoid sitting and sucking fumes on the freeway over Thanksgiving, you need to leave early or leave late. You do not want to be on the roads when everyone else is. You need to decide if you can leave really early in the morning or perhaps a day early or leave really late or maybe a day late.

Sea-Tac expects up to 1 million travelers over Thanksgiving week

We usually start seeing heavier traffic on Tuesday afternoon, but Wednesday is by far the worst travel day before Thanksgiving.

If you are using I-5 southbound from Tacoma to Lacey, the Washington State Department of Transportation said you can expect heavier than normal volumes from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., but it doesn’t really get to regular traffic volumes until about 10 p.m.

WSDOT’s Cara Mitchell said you should make sure your car is ready for stop and go traffic and be prepared for long waits.

“Give yourself plenty of time and watch the weather conditions,” she advised.

One thing drivers can be thankful for on the drive through Tacoma is all of the new HOV connections between I-5 and Highway 16 that opened over the weekend. That should eliminate a lot of congestion.

“If you live in Gig Harbor, you can jump in the HOV lane and go eastbound and take that HOV lane all the way to I-5 without merging in and out of any lanes,” Mitchell said.

The same goes for southbound I-5. You can now go straight from the HOV lane on I-5 to the HOV lane on westbound Highway 16.

But Mitchell said you can still expect big delays in the construction zone over the Puyallup River.

Still chance of light snow before Thanksgiving

The eastbound I-90 drive is usually quite bad on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving too. You can expect nearly double the normal traffic between North Bend and Cle Elum during the afternoon.

Eastbound Highway 2 sees heavier volumes too, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the other routes.

The one thing you really need to prepare for is returning home. You don’t want to come back Sunday. A lot of people have clued-into that as well so Saturday can be very busy too.

That’s when the “go early or go late” approach can really help.

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