DC Area Drops To 12th Most Gridlocked During COVID-19 Pandemic

WASHINGTON, DC — The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions in the spring of 2020, such as stay-at-home orders, led to a drastic drop in U.S. road travel, according to new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Beyond the initial months of the pandemic, though, non-work-related travel nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels unlike work-related travel, the foundation’s "New American Driving Survey" found.

Lower traffic counts in the nation’s capital resulted in the Washington, D.C. area dropping from the fifth most congested city in the United States to the nation’s 12th most gridlocked place, according to the INRIX 2020 Global Traffic Scorecard.

The average number of all daily personal car trips plunged 45 percent in April 2020 and 40 percent for trips by all modes of transportation combined, according to the AAA Foundation research. The dip in travel moderated later in the year but remained below 2019 levels.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on our commute habits and patterns in the United States,” Dr. David Yang, executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, said in a statement Tuesday. “Findings based on our survey data provided some contextual information to understand better how this unfortunate event has affected the way we travel.”

Daily trips for all modes of transportation fell from an average of 3.7 trips per day in 2019 to 2.2 trips in April 2020, before slightly recovering. After abruptly decreasing in April 2020, daily trips by U.S. residents rebounded somewhat in May and June and then remained at approximately 20 percent to 25 percent below their 2019 levels during the second half of 2020.

“Looking ahead, reports of the death knell for traffic gridlock and the dearth of highway congestion in the Washington metro area ‘have been greatly exaggerated,’ to paraphrase Mark Twain,” John B. Townsend II, AAA Mid-Atlantic’s Manager of Public and Government Affairs, said in a statement.

Results of the AAA Foundation New American Driving Survey also show that early in the pandemic, reductions in travel were most substantial among teens and young adults, ages 16 to 24, and among those ages 65 and older.

SEE ALSO: Virginia Traffic Deaths Rise In 2020 Despite Fewer Cars On Road

Despite fewer cars on the road and more people staying home, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently estimated that 38,680 people died in vehicle traffic crashes in 2020, the largest projected number of fatalities since 2007 and an increase of about 7.2 percent over 2019.

“It’s counterintuitive to see the rate of traffic deaths spike when so many of us were driving less often,” said Jake Nelson, AAA’s director of traffic safety advocacy. “As the U.S. climbs out of the COVID-19 pandemic, highway safety officials will need to double down on curbing speeding, substance-impaired driving, and failure to buckle up.”

An April report from INRIX found that evening rush hours in 45 of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas have returned to pre-pandemic levels, while morning rush hour traffic levels have returned to only five of the 100 largest metro areas, AAA Mid-Atlantic said.