COLUMBUS – Expect to have plenty of company on the highways today as Ohioans begin their long holiday weekend by getting out of town.
The auto club AAA predicts a record 103.1 million Americans, including 4.2 million Ohioans, will be traveling between now and Jan. 2. That includes 37.8 million Ohioans who will drive to their destinations.
The last time the holiday fell on a Sunday – 2011 – the Ohio Department of Transportation says the busiest travel days were the Thursday before Christmas and the Monday after Christmas.
Although ODOT tries to minimize the impact of construction on highway travel during holiday periods, motorists in central Ohio will have a couple of large ongoing projects to navigate:
A new traffic configuration is in place at the site of the I-70 widening project between Interstate 270 and Hilliard Rome Road (see diagram).
Also, a major project to build new ramps and bridges is ongoing at the I-270/SR 315/U.S. Route 23 interchange on the North Side. Motorists should be aware of new ramp configurations.
Motorists can download ODOT’s OHGO app for Apple and Android phones, which allows users to view real-time traffic speeds, more than 600 live traffic cameras, construction zone information, and traffic alerts. Drivers can also create a customized route and get alerts pushed directly to their phones.
This is the highest total volume since AAA began tracking Christmas/New Year’s holiday travel data in 2001.
Officials remind us to drive carefully. So far this year, there have been 1,094 traffic deaths, 319 involving people not wearing a seat belt.