WSDOT says holiday traffic will remain congested through Saturday



SEATTLE - A lot of people are trying to get out of town with their families for the holiday weekend, so the Department of Transportation says there’s going to be congestion again tomorrow.

Ann Underwood lives on Bainbridge island, so she takes a lot of ferries. but she’s not used to waiting several hours to get onboard.

“Usually if you're there ten minutes prior to, it's not too much of a problem on Fridays,” she says. “But today coming down the hill, traffic was already over to the side of the road, and moving at a snail’s pace.”

Travelers knew the ferries would be busy with people trying to get out of town, but no one expected three hour long lines at the Edmonds dock.

“We thought we'd get here before everyone got off work,” says Michael Stewart. “So it's worse than we thought, but we're having a good time.”

“We were really excited when we thought we were going to make the boat we were trying to make,” adds Anthony Loos. “Once we got up here and realized we weren't, it was kind of a letdown. But we'll deal with it, we're going to have a good weekend.”

WSDOT says the ferries will likely be busy all weekend, so people who want to get out of town might want to leave their cars behind and walk on, or give themselves a couple extra hours travel time. The roads may not be much better.

“Because it’s Saturday and we’re still in the early part of the holiday weekend, expect the traffic to be similar to what we saw Friday,” says Justin Fujioka.

That means lots of congestion heading south towards Portland, north towards Canada, or east over the Cascades.

“Right now, as we head into the overnight hours, we’re going to see traffic start to die down.  So that’s probably the best time if you’re alert and awake enough to drive,” says Fujioka. “That’s when you’ll see the least congestion.”

Even though the weekend is just beginning, you might want to start thinking about Monday and everyone coming back into town. WSDOT says Monday afternoon will be the peak travel time on the roads and on the water. So you might want to come back early Monday morning or wait until Tuesday, if you can.