The holiday drive is well underway

Check the current traffic conditions

With July 4th falling on a Thursday, the holiday getaway is well underway. KIRO Radio traffic reporter Kimi Kline says as of 4:30 p.m., the drive between Seattle and Everett was taking over an hour.

Mike Allende with the Washington State Department of Transportation says they expect a lot of folks will take off work a little early to begin their long weekend.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with this Thursday holiday,” says Allende. “A lot of people are probably going to be sticking around home, so it could be that we’ll see (less) traffic on the highway.”

You can expect traffic jams in the usual spots. I-90 heading east over the Cascades tends to back up, as does I-5 south through Fife, Tacoma and Olympia.

Allende says I-5 tends to run pretty smoothly in Snohomish and Skagit counties even with the lower speed limit on the temporary bridge over the Skagit River.

The best time to take off? That would probably be Thursday morning before everyone starts heading out to see the fireworks.

In the afternoon and evening, traffic will begin to build on the freeways and ferries.

“A lot of people enjoy going over to the islands for the 4th of July, so I would expect that there could be longer waits potentially for the ferries,” Allende says. “We always recommend that people show up as early as possible.”

The good news is there’s no major road construction planned through the weekend. Allende says they’ve already finished up everything they wanted to get done this week. There are just a couple of minor closures planned for Friday, but other than that it should be smooth sailing.