Travel speeds on major US roadways have risen sharply as the coronavirus pandemic and related lockdowns have forced would-be commuters to stay home. Roads are so empty, in fact, that areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles have seen a roughly 60% jump in highway speeds during evening rush hour.
That's according to Inrix, a Kirkland, Washington-based analytics firm that recently studied just how fast drivers are going now that the roads are theirs and theirs alone. Inrix analyzed travel speeds on highways and expressways in 25 metropolitan areas, comparing morning and evening rush-hour speeds during the week of April 6 to rush-hour speeds during a control week in late February, before things got really bad in the US.
Across the board, travel speeds during typical morning and evening commute times were measurably higher in April than in February. The change in average speed ranged from 6% up to 60%, depending on the location and time of day.
Bob Pishue, a transportation analyst at Inrix, told Business Insider the areas that typically have the most congestion generally saw the most drastic bumps in average speed.
Seattle, the initial epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, was among the first cities to see this rapid shift in travel behavior, Pishue said. Traffic there virtually evaporated overnight after major employers in the area — including Amazon and Microsoft — told employees to begin working from home in early March.
Now, as roughly 95% of Americans are under some form of stay-at-home order, congestion on major roadways has all but disappeared — likewise, travel speeds during peak commute times have skyrocketed.
These are the 25 US metropolitan areas Inrix studied, ranked according to the average speed increase observed during evening rush hour on the week of April 6 through 10.
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