Houston sees first week without traffic spike since reopening

Over the last few weeks, Houston traffic has gradually picked up, but now, the trend is flattening.

Since the beginning of May, with businesses reopening, the city has seen a gradual rebound in traffic, but now that growth is starting to level off.

CultureMap news partner, ABC 13, crunched the numbers with Houston Transtar. This is a similar breakdown to one done in April, where Houston Transtar measured the number of cars using a radar site at I-10/Katy Freeway and Voss. Compared to this time last year, the number of cars passing through this location in a 24-hour period was down approximately 50 percent, due to COVID-19 closures.

Here are the numbers from Houston Transtar:

• Week of May 16: Traffic 18.8 percent lower than the same week last year
• Week of May 23: Traffic down 18.1 percent compared to the same week of last year
• Week of May 30: Traffic 13.5 percent lower than the same week last year
• Week of June 6: 14 percent percent drop year over year, a move in the opposite direction

Essentially, traffic is still down compared to regular summertime patterns, but the city is no longer seeing much growth week over week.

Experts predict we won't see another jump in traffic until school gets back in session and people return to the workplace in large numbers.

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For more on this story, including video, visit our content partner, ABC13.