Big Labor Day plans? Leave early! Traffic congestion will be everywhere, and it’s high on most people’s list as a top stress generator. Does it seem to be getting worse where you are?
Seasoned travelers are likely to mention I-4 in Los Angeles, I-95 in Stamford, Connecticut, or I-278 in New York as the worst traffic offenders that they have experienced. Yet, according to a transportation analytics firm named INRIX, the very worst is right here in Florida. No, it’s not I-95 in Miami nor I-75 in Tampa. Rather, it’s Orlando’s I-4 Westbound from Beachline Expressway (State Road 528) to Western Beltway (State Road 429) in Florida, where the average motorist lost 124 hours of quality time last year.
This reporter lives in a bedroom community situated along that stretch of I-4. Ten or so years ago that stretch of Interstate was widened in a multi-year project with the promise that it would likely never need further widening in the foreseeable future. By the time it was completed, those of us who live there realized that it was already overcapacity.
The Florida Department of Transportation has begun working on it again. But all those lane closures and orange barrels, however temporary, are only adding to the congestion.
There seems to be two reasons why Florida highways seem to be overloaded: domestic population shift and tourism.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, after decades of rapid population increase, Florida now is the nation’s fastest-growing state for the first time since 1957. With Florida’s population increased by 1.9% to 22,244,823 between 2021 and 2022 surpassing Idaho, the previous year’s fastest-growing state. And taht record growth means record traffic congestion.
Florida’s percentage gains since 1946 have been impressive: its 2022 population is just over 9 times its 1946 population of 2,440,000.
In the 1950s, as air conditioning became more prevalent in warmer parts of the United States, Florida’s annual population growth averaged 6.1%. It hit 8% in both 1956 and 1957, near the peak of the baby boom, marking the last time Florida was the fastest-growing state — until now.
During the 1990s, Florida’s growth far outpaced the national rate, which was between 1.5% and 2% each year that decade. An annual population growth of 8% is exceptionally rapid and translates to a population doubling roughly every nine years.
In the 2000s, a slowing trend set in with Florida averaging an annual growth of 1.7%. While this might seem slow compared to Florida’s growth in prior years, it is still a brisk pace. During the same period, the national growth hovered around 1.0% a year.
That trend has continued since 2010. Between 2010 and 2020, national growth dipped from 0.9% to 0.5% each year while Florida’s increases ranged from 1.0% to 2.0%. In 2022, Florida’s growth was nearing that previous decade high at 1.9%, not high compared to past gains but still the fastest among the states. Interestingly, Florida had the second-largest numeric gains behind Texas.
Why hasn’t Florida been the country’s fastest-growing state in any other year since 1957? In a word — Nevada.As mentioned earlier, Florida’s percentage gains since 1946 have been impressive: its 2022 population is just over 9 times its 1946 population of 2,440,000. But Nevada’s increases are even higher. Its 2022 population of 3,177,772 is a stunning 22 times its 1946 population of 143,000. For 36 of the 76 years since 1946, Nevada has held the top spot.Arizona, Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, and Alaska are among the other fastest-growing in the postwar era.
Florida’s infrastructure simply can’t seem to keep up.
According to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida has seen gains in population over the last 5 years from states like New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, that greatly outpace any migration out of Florida. (For example, 250,000 New Yorkers moved to Florida in the last 5 years; on the other hand 40,000 left Florida for North Carolina.) However, as Florida attracts new residents, the rapid population growth also contributes to higher prices. The low cost of living that Florida used to boast has waned, and those who moved here in pursuit of more affordable living could be looking elsewhere.
Another metric that supports this finding is where these people are moving. Latest data shows that Florida lost the most people to Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. These are states with either no income tax and/or a lower cost of living than Florida. The trend remains the same if we go back further – over the past five years we have lost the most net residents to North Carolina, Texas and Georgia. The Chamber expects to see a continued outflow of people to those and other similar states in 2024 as affordability increasingly reveals itself to be the big pressure point here.
What about that other contributor to traffic congestion, tourism? AAA reports that summer 2024 broke records. And domestic travel over Labor Day weekend is expected to be up 9% compared to last year.
While not the top destination for Labor Day travel, Florida gets more than its share. According to AAA booking data, smaller crowds and cooler temperatures seem to account for why Seattle is the number one 2024 Labor Day weekend destination, up nearly 30% from last year when it also topped the list.
Other top Labor Day destinations include Orlando, New York, Boston, Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, and San Francisco.
According to Visit Florida, an estimated 40.6 million people traveled to Florida during the first three months of the year, a 1.2 percent increase from the same period in 2023. The first-quarter numbers for this year were dominated by an estimated 37 million people traveling to Florida from other states, the most ever for a single quarter. An estimated 2.1 million overseas travelers and 1.3 million Canadian visitors also traveled to the Florida.
Visit Florida touts Florida as the top domestic destination for U.S. travelers and second for international visitors.And of course, it’s not just the tourists themselves who clog the roads at rush hour, but also the greater number of employees needed to serve them. Any way you stack it, the state is ripe for more and more traffic congestion.
Between domestic population migration and the Central Florida theme parks, is it any wonder that it often takes morning commuters 10 minutes to go three miles on I-4?
