Worst times to drive in KC this Memorial Day weekend
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Consider staying off Kansas City highways Thursday and Friday afternoons if you want to avoid the worst Memorial Day weekend traffic, according to INRIX forecasts.
The big picture: AAA predicts this will be the busiest Memorial Day ever for travel — meaning your departure time could make or break your trip.
By the numbers: AAA anticipates that more than 45 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more over Memorial Day weekend. That's 200,000 more than last year.
- The bulk of them — more than 39 million travelers — will be driving.
Between the lines: Sunday is the best driving day, per INRIX, a transportation data analytics company that works with AAA to calculate travel times.
Zoom in: I-70 through Jackson County is down a lane in each direction between 25th St. and the US-40/31st St. interchange for the Improve I-70 KC bridge project, which runs through the rest of May.
- Translation: if you're headed east toward Lake of the Ozarks, Columbia or St. Louis, you're funneling through a work zone at the worst possible hours.
What we're watching: Watch out for aggressive Monday-morning drivers.
- AAA and Cambridge Mobile Telematics clocked a 29% spike in Memorial Day speeding compared to other Mondays, with speeding peaking 7am to 9am.
Flying instead? KCI is consistently back to pre-pandemic passenger volumes, with Thursday and Friday typically the peak departure days.
- Justin Meyer, then a KCI Aviation Department spokesperson, told KSHB travelers should use the cell phone lot at 860 Brasilia Ave. for pickups rather than waiting at the arrivals curb.
Pro tip: If you can leave before 10am Monday on the way home, you'll dodge most of the return crunch and the speeders.