FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Call it Road Covid — the lingering effect of the pandemic that’s made commuting a crap shoot.
“We do have hybrid work now,” said Mark Schieldrop, spokesperson for AAA Northeast. “We have more folks with flexible schedules so rush hour is maybe a little less predictable.”
Not that Boston doesn’t feature a rush hour. And it can be brutal.
But many drivers are encountering mini-rush hours, seemingly at any time of the day.
“The GPS said an hour and a half and now it’s like over two hours,” said Linda Lubrico, who was headed east on the Mass Pike, to take her grandmother, Linda, to Tufts Medical Center.
That was the traffic situation at 11:00 AM.
“Maybe everybody’s going back to work,” said Joe Mogavero, on his way to Logan Airport for a pick-up. “(Traffic is) much heavier after the pandemic.”
Mogavero, who is from Shelton, Connecticut, said it’s the same story with the traffic in his state.
But is heavier traffic more a matter of perception than reality? Yes and no.
The Federal Highway Administration reports that summer vehicular traffic in the Northeastern states rose 2.5% over last summer. But the number of vehicle miles in August 2023 was still slightly below what they were in August 2019, before the pandemic.
“There are certainly more cars on the road,” said Schieldrop. “They’re bigger, they’re faster, more powerful. Our infrastructure really hasn’t kept up with that.”
That affects traffic in two ways. First, some roads are just not wide enough to handle all the traffic. And second, many roads and bridges are falling apart. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, passed by Congress in 2021, made billions of dollars available for the nation’s crumbling roads. Those repairs, now underway, have contributed to traffic jams on highways and backroads.
“It’s very hard to know exactly whether you’re going to be in gridlock at any time of day,” said Schieldrop. “Sometimes, you try to beat the traffic. It’ll be six o’clock in ther morning and you will be in complete gridlock wondering, why am I stuck in traffic.”
Schieldrop notes that Massachusetts saw its deadliest year on record for vehicular fatalities — a result, possibly, of the faster, more aggressive style of driving that evolved during the empty highway days of the pandemic. And more fatal accidents mean more back-ups.
Linda Lubrico saw examples of that road recklessness on the Mass Pike.
“People are driving crazy,” she said. “Nobody respects anybody else, they cut you off. It’s very dangerous to be driving now. I go five miles over the speed limit and they’re passing me like I’m sitting still.”
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