What to expect: Post-holiday Monday is busy travel day on US roads

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Monday is is expected to be one of the busiest travel days of the year as people get home from holiday celebrations.

Experts say the best time to leave is before 2 p.m. or leave after 8 p.m.

“Hopefully on the second there’s not a huge evening rush hour, because of it being a holiday for so many people, but don’t plan on that. Expect that there still could be some rush hour traffic and if you’re a traveler getting mixed up in that, it could mean even longer backup,” said Morgan Dean, AAA spokesperson.

An estimated 112.7 million people were expected to travel this holiday season, according to AAA.

Dean says the number of people hitting the roads could be even higher.

He says that’s because with Southwest flight cancellations, more people changed their minds and decided to drive instead of fly.

“Will that change what we see on the second? We don’t really know, but we could see a lot of people on the roads this year that were not accounted for in that forecast because of what was happening with Southwest and all those flight cancellations,” said Dean.

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