Bay Area travelers should brace themselves for sprawling traffic next week as drivers brave the roads to make it in time for Thanksgiving dinner. According to AAA’s annual holiday travel report based on data from INRIX, almost 81.8 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home for Thanksgiving — about 1.6 million more than last year and 4 million more than in 2019, before the pandemic.
In California, 9.6 million drivers are expected to be on the road — a 2.7% increase from last year, when about 9.4 million drivers were predicted to make their way down California’s highways.
Last year, AAA’s prediction for the worst Bay Area highway to travel on was Interstate 80, which is undergoing several simultaneous construction projects that have left traffic snarled. This year’s contender for the peak congestion period is a trip from San Francisco to Santa Rosa, traveling north on Highway 101. The 55-mile drive could take over 2.5 hours for drivers who leave on Tuesday at 7:15 p.m., when the average speed is projected to slow to 21 mph…