This is a follow-up to a previous post that graphed Pennsylvania traffic patterns during Covid-19.
This past November, rising rates of Covid-19 prompted government leaders in Pennsylvania to issue strict guidelines for travel during the holidays. Motorists were reminded to stay at home, get tested for out-of-state travel, or to quarantine. So how were traffic levels impacted as a result? PennDOT's Traffic Information Repository, offers answers.
Holiday Traffic: 2019 vs 2020
I collected traffic data from a sample of 14 continuous traffic counters throughout Pennsylvania. The goal was to compare 2020 holiday traffic levels to last year's levels. Rather than simply looking at Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, I collected traffic counts for a five-day period surrounding each holiday. The resulting analysis is the percentage drop from 2019 to 2020 for the 14 sampled locations. The results are shown on this map below.
Thanksgiving Traffic: 2019 vs 2020
The following bar chart aggegrates the traffic counts for all of the 14 sites samples for the days surrounding Thanksgiving. Wednesday through Sunday were chosen. The percentage show the decline from 2019 to 2020. Note that Thanksgiving Day has the largest percentage decline.
Christmas Traffic: 2019 vs 2020
For Christmas, I sampled the same 14 continuous traffic counters and aggregated the counts for December 23rd through 27th. Since Christmas falls on a different day each year, the day of the week is shown in the x-axis labels.
New Year's Eve Traffic: 2019 vs 2020
I also tracked differences for New Year's Eve. For something a little different, I compared the hour by hour counts during the evening of New Year's Eve. As parties and "drop" events were cancelled, the year-to-year differences increase near midnight.
Returning to Baseline in 2021?
When will we see a return to pre-pandemic levels? Vaccinations are beginning to roll out, but we are also getting reports of the new Covid variant appearing in Pennsylvania. Will we return to baseline in 2021? Readers, stay tuned.