Thanksgiving travel forecast: 6.6 million Californians will hit the road. Airports and trains will be crowded

Californians traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday will face frustrating crowds and congestion, whether they drive, fly or take a train to get away.

The worst place to be in California on Wednesday night will be driving northbound on Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, where travel time is expected to double to almost four hours, the transportation analytics firm INRIX said.

The Automobile Club of Southern California predicted that 6.6 million Californians will travel more than 50 miles for the holiday, a 2.8% increase from the 2023 travel season, and 3.3% more than 2019, before the pandemic. INRIX expects traffic in Southern California to spike Tuesday from 1 to 7 p.m., with an average of 38% increase in travel time, the auto club said in a release.

Roads are expected to clear up on Thanksgiving day until travelers hit the road again after the holiday.

Nationally, AAA projects almost 80 million Americans will travel between Tuesday and next Monday, setting a new record, it said in a release. AAA extended its usual holiday travel period to include the Tuesday before the holiday and the Monday after, breaking from past holiday estimates that only looked at Wednesday through Sunday.

A rainy start to the week from the remnants of an atmospheric river storm that surged across the state may turn roads slippery for motorists driving throughout Southern California on Monday and Tuesday. A National Weather Service meteorologist said travelers could avoid the rain by leaving Wednesday or Thursday morning instead, when roads and skies will be drier.

The California Department of Transportation suggested motorists check their vehicles for maintenance issues before leaving, avoid distractions like texting, allow extra time to reach your destination and bring a phone charger for the drive.

Amtrak also expects to welcome a surge of travelers at train stations ahead of the holiday. Last year, more than 50,000 people traveled through Los Angeles Union Station between Nov. 18 and 26, a 35% increase from 2022, it said in a release. The busiest day to take a train will be Sunday, based on the 132,000 people who rode Amtrak last year. Amtrak didn’t predict the number of train riders for this holiday weekend.

LAX expects more than 2.2 million passengers to fly through it between Thursday and Monday, with the busiest travel day expected to be Sunday, airport officials said in a release. Passengers should arrive two hours before their departure time, or three hours if traveling internationally, and book parking ahead of time to ensure a spot on days where parking structures are expected to reach capacity.

But for those who got an early start to the holidays, the scene at the nation’s second busiest airport was more hectic than usual Monday as unionized workers who clean planes and handle baggage held a demonstration at LAX to demand higher wages. The protest at the airport Monday was followed by a food drive for workers who the union says can’t afford quality groceries or holiday meals because of low wages. The L.A. City Council punted a pay raise decision to December over worries that increasing pay for hotel and airport workers might hurt the city’s tourism industry.