Thanksgiving travel hits ‘peak congestion’ in DC area
AAA said that period started at 2 p.m., with travel times lasting a little more than an hour.
“The heavy highway traffic around in the region, predictable, but not unlike some summer Friday afternoons,” said traffic reporter Dave Diline from the WTOP Traffic Center. “So nothing outrageous and nothing beyond expectations for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.”
And while some got an early start by leaving Tuesday night, it was a busy scene at Reagan National Airport Wednesday morning, with as many as 7,000 additional air travelers expected, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
On the road: ‘We’re getting into rush hour’
According to AAA, over 1.3 million D.C. area residents are expected to hit the roads during the holiday weekend.
Some of them are already in the middle of their trip and know that traffic is expected to be busy Wednesday afternoon. Some drivers are doing as much driving as possible before traffic gets worse.
“We actually left yesterday,” a driver heading from South Carolina to see his daughter in New Jersey told WTOP at the Dale City, Virginia, rest stop on northbound Interstate 95, before the sun came up.
He added that his strategy is “to drive though the middle of the night when there’s not many cars on the road. So far, so good, but we’re getting into rush hour, so we gotta get going again.”
Another traveler, heading to Pennsylvania had a similar idea: “I left at 10 o’clock last night, when I got off work, there was no one on the roads.”
He doesn’t appear to be too affected by the missed sleep, and expects to be with his family by late Wednesday morning. “I had a cup of coffee at the first stop, but I’m used to driving.”
One traveler, who left Georgia with his family Tuesday afternoon, has hours to go until they reach their destination. “We’re going to New Jersey, staying with family, enjoying Thanksgiving dinner,” he said.
TSA is ‘fully staffed’ in preparation for holiday travel
Reagan National is packed with travelers as the TSA expects to screen an additional 6,000 to 7,000 passengers at the airport alone on Wednesday.
TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein told WTOP that the agency is ready to check and screen passengers.
“We are fully staffed across the country at our checkpoints,” Farbstein said.
She also advises those waiting in line to take out whatever is in your pocket out and put it all in your carry-on bags to keep things moving.
Farbstein said that passengers who are traveling with holiday food that are solids, such as whole turkeys, are allowed through security, but liquids and anything spreadable like gravy has to be checked.
Security lines ebbed and flowed during the morning. Around 6:30 a.m., the line to get through the north security checkpoint stretched far and around the information desk, but at other times the security area cleared considerably.
Passengers told WTOP that they were expecting a busier than normal travel day and many of them came extra early.
“I made sure to come two hours before,” Georgetown University student David Stewart said.
Annie, who’s traveling to Boston, said that she’s never seen such a long line at an airport.
“Usually, I breeze through it and it is a little surprising. But it’s also the day before Thanksgiving,” she said.
WTOP’s Tadiwos Abedje contributed to this story.