Labor Day traffic ain’t so bad, says StreetLight
There may not be as much of an uptick in vehicles leaving town as you think
Holiday traffic on the first day of the Labor Day weekend in the US does not increase dramatically, according to a study from StreetLight Data.
It is often assumed there a major increase in traffic headed out of towns on the first day of the weekend, the Friday, versus a typical Friday. To test this assumption, StreetLight Data, a big data analytics business, analysed trip patterns in the top 50 US metropolitan areas to see how Labor Day trip volumes, lengths and travel times compared to a typical Friday.
StreetLight said that understanding leisure ground travel patterns is critical for public sector agencies managing traffic during major peaks in activity, as well as for private sector businesses dependent on tourism activity. It impacts rest stops, fuelling stations, toll operators, roadside motels, restaurants and vacation hubs.
To understand how the US’s biggest metropolitan areas compare when it comes to road trippers fleeing the city for one last hurrah, StreetLight used its transportation analytics to analyse vehicle travel trends the 50 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas by population.
In the US, a Metropolitan Statistical Area is a geographical region with a relatively high population density and might not always include a very large city.
The study considered how travel activity compared on the Friday before Labor Day in 2024 versus a typical Friday during the autumn immediately after that period. Analysis focused on the share of out-of-town trips, total trips, average trip length and average travel time.
The analysis found that Labor Day Friday does not see as big an uptick as might be expected in the share of trips leaving cities versus a typical Friday.
The largest increase occurred in Minneapolis, with the share of leaving trips increasing by 1.5 percentage points, followed by Raleigh and Richmond.
Even more surprising, according to StreetLight, was that in nearly every metropolitan area in the study fewer total trips took place on Labor Day Friday versus a typical Friday. Only nine of the top 50 metropolitan areas had total trips increase on Labor Day Friday as compared to a typical Friday.
The popular tourist metropolitan areas of Tampa, Jacksonville and Las Vegas saw the biggest increase in total trips on Labor Day Friday.
Meanwhile, Hartford had the biggest share of trips heading out of town on a typical Friday, accounting for about 15% of trips. Raleigh and Salt Lake City saw the next highest shares, at roughly 10% each.
Overall, the share of trips leaving a region actually did not increase substantially. In fact, the largest increase in share of trips out of a city among the metros is Minneapolis with an increase from about 4.5% of trips on a typical Friday to 6% on Labor Day Friday.
While a 1.5% difference might seem small, it represents just over 100,000 trips.
After Minneapolis, the next metropolitan areas with the biggest bumps in share of trips leaving the city for the long weekend are Raleigh, Richmond, Grand Rapids and Philadelphia.