SPOKANE, Wash. — The Washington State Department of Transportation recently released graphs in a blog post that reveal how much traffic has decreased since the stay at home order went into effect.
In Spokane, it shows that traffic has decreased by about 20% on the North Spokane Corridor, and about 38% on US 195.
Traffic has decreased by 32 percent in Spokane Valley, and by 30% on I-90.
According to Bart Treece of WSDOT, traffic volume and the number of cars on the road have decreased drastically. For a period of time in March, the volume of cars on the road was down by 50% statewide. The largest dip in volume of traffic came just after Governor Jay Inslee issued the statewide "Stay at Home" order, on March 26th, according to Treece.
Disclaimer: WSDOT says in order to meet the unprecedented need for real time information, "almost no quality control is occuring" relative to the data in this graph.
The drop and traffic is even more stark on the west side, where the volume of traffic has decreased by around 75 percent in high density areas north of Seattle.
However, Treece noted there's been an uptick in traffic since the initial decrease, signaling people are going out and about more now than they did when the Stay at Home order first started.
"That's not a welcome trend just yet," Treece wrote. "At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let's stay vigilant and keep up the good work of social distancing during the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order. "
