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| Above, The Beast at the viewing area off I-15 near Roberts, Idaho. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
The traffic jam after Monday's eclipse on Interstate 15 was horrendous. It took me four and a half hours to get from the northern part of Idaho Falls to Lava Hot Springs.
The traffic started snarling up just north of Idaho Falls and it continued at a snail's pace (sometimes not even that fast) until I reached the northern outskirts of Pocatello. That jam had a length of about 50 miles.
According to the Idaho Transportation Department:
UPDATE: Tuesday, August 22
Here are the preliminary numbers of total cars traveling to and through Idaho for the 2017 Solar Eclipse: Our traffic counters near the state borders counted 449,530 cars entering the state between August 18 and August 21. This number was an increase of 71,140 during that same time frame last year when 361,270 cars were counted entering Idaho at those same locations. ITD estimates more than 160,000 visitors came from out of state for the event (see methodology below).
The bulk of the visitors came from Utah and Oregon. Areas where the traffic was busiest include I-15 between Utah and Idaho Falls, US-93 near Craters of the Moon, US-20 near Arco, ID-95 from Payette to Riggins, and ID-55 north of Eagle.
I noticed that most of the license plates in the traffic snarl were from Utah. There had to have been more than 160,000 more visitors from out of state.
To read more, go here.
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