Traffic Payout

Headline from WSDOT's Web site Dec. 25, 2008: "Don we now our rain apparel? Warmer temperatures are welcome gifts to Washington drivers"

On the west side, we were just warming up from the most recent winter storm. Over the mountains and into Eastern Washington you could still find some spots of ice and snow.



While WSDOT road crews were out fighting the weather Christmas Day (and the days and nights leading up to it), I sent that info to news outlets and our Web site while toasty warm on Christmas Day. Those crews are much tougher than me. (Side note: Should I praise or curse technology? Hmmmm - still trying to decide.)

On our YouTube channel we have some videos about what we do all winter.

So back to my point - snow was here in December 2008. As we got closer to January, it finally started to turn around. This type of weather can wreak havoc on travel, so the travel patterns and drivers who travel in December can vary widely from year to year. For this reason, WSDOT will not be posting historical travel data for Christmas and New Years Holiday weekends.

We typically post historical travel data to show drivers when we expect heavier-than-normal traffic on key vacation-type routes. With both Christmas and New Years on Friday this year, we thought about it. But, the historical data can get skewed with one or two days of bad weather in late December.

Our colleagues at AAA have information on projected travel, which they gather through nationwide surveys.

We do have some travel information for Christmas and New Years. We find only two spots of higher-than-normal traffic, the I-5 area north of Seattle and I-5 through Thurston and Lewis counties. Remember, the predictions are based on clear driving conditions.

The mountain pass highways aren't one of the heavy travel spots in late December, but ski season and any new snow may bring more people to I-90 Snoqualmie Pass, US 2 Stevens Pass and US 12 White Pass.

Regardless, prepare and know before you go. Washington weather can change quickly.

We watch mountain passes closely this time of year as the weather can make getting across the state more than a little challenging. We are constantly working to develop tools to help travelers make their journeys as safely as possible, but not everyone is aware of all of the tools in our toolbox. Here is a run-down of what we have to offer to help making crossing the passes a little easier.

The mountain pass page on our website is a good place to start as it lists all of the passes and a map of their locations. You can select a specific pass, like Snoqualmie, and get further information such as the current weather conditions, camera views, and any restrictions that are currently in place.

On the pass page you can sign up for email alerts. Every time pass conditions change, you will be sent an email. A caveat to this method however, is that when the weather starts to act up, pass conditions can change rapidly and often which can mean a lot of emails in your inbox.

Another option available on the pass page is subscribing to the pass's RSS feed. You can find more information about RSS feeds and how to use them here. This is a great way to get up-to-date information without clogging up your email.

We have a specially formatted page for mobile devices you can use to check pass conditions before you head out.  And for those of you who are in the twitterverse, we have a bevy of exciting twitter features to help plan your trip.  You can follow our twitter account dedicated entirely to the mountain passes and get the pass conditions real-time as they are updated.

My favorite is our direct messaging feature. For those of you unfamiliar with the workings of Twitter, direct messages (aka DM) are private messages between two twitter users who are following each other. No one else on Twitter (or the internet for that matter) can see theses message. So in order for this feature to work you first need to follow our main WSDOT twitter account (NOT the pass account). Then we to have to follow you back. Once we are following your account, you can send us a direct message with a special code we have created for all of the passes.  Using the Snoqualmie example it would be "pass sno".  In about 3-4 minutes the current pass conditions will be tweeted back to you.  As a side note, this feature also works for travel times, border crossing wait times and aviation weather conditions. You can learn more about our twitter features on our web page dedicated to Twitter.

Another helpful resource we have put together for travelers is our winter driving tips page where we cover everything from what to put in an emergency car kit to how to travel around a snow plow. There is a ton of information here to help you get around in winter weather conditions.

It is our hope that with these tools at your disposal, you can Know Before You Go and make good decisions before you ever get into your vehicle.