Wisconsin traffic, transit ridership still down 2 years after start of pandemic

More than two years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin drivers still aren’t commuting as much as they used to, according to a review of traffic data by a public policy think tank.

And while weekday auto traffic has dipped slightly, transit usage has dropped dramatically, with bus ridership down about 50 percent across nine Wisconsin cities.

The study by the Wisconsin Policy Forum used data from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to measure auto traffic and data from the Federal Transit Administration to measure bus ridership.

Not all traffic has changed equally.

Weekend traffic has largely returned to normal, according to the report. For example, in six out of the past 12 months, weekend traffic exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

In addition, DOT data show truck traffic in March was up by 7 percent compared to March 2019.

But on weekdays, traffic remains down compared to pre-pandemic levels, with the sharpest declines during the morning and evening hours when residents typically commute. Weekday traffic in March was down 5.2 percent compared to March 2019, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The report found there hasn’t been a single month when weekday traffic was higher than it was before the pandemic.

“I think that there’s definitely a potential for things to change over the course of the next couple of months this summer, and also over the course of the next couple years,” said Wisconsin Policy Forum senior research associate Ari Brown. “But there’s definitely a chance that this is just the new reality that we’re in when it comes to car traffic.”

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Brown said the drop was most pronounced in Madison, where transit ridership has been down 65 percent or more since the first full month of the pandemic in April 2020.

“Especially in a place like Madison … you have a very high concentration of people with white collar-type jobs,” Brown said. “We kind of feel that the thread that connects all of these things is there’s just less commuting happening in general, with … a kind of increased ability to work from home.”

Brown said if these numbers represent a “new normal,” it could raise issues for officials in state and local governments. A decline in driving could result in a decline in the gas tax revenues that fund roads.

Additionally, Brown said it might be worth considering how to prioritize transportation spending, possibly by focusing more on bicycle and pedestrian traffic.