Christmas weekend travel charts - I-5 Lacey to Tacoma

Christmas weekend travel charts showing when I-5 Lacey to Tacoma is expected to be the most congested to help plan your travel.

Reading the charts

The colors

WSDOT traffic analysts looked at how many cars were on the road past Christmas weekends. Based on this historical data, the graphs shows how many cars (vertical axis) we project to be on the road each hour (horizontal axis) for Christmas weekend 2023. As the graphs turn from green to yellow, drivers can expect some congestion. During the red hours, traffic analysts predict travel will reach roadway capacity. Once a roadway reaches capacity, any small incident can cause significant backups.

The black line

The black line running from left to right shows typical traffic. This gives drivers more information on how the Christmas 2023 holiday weekend travel may relate to a typical weekend.