Afternoons are the new rush hour in the suburbs

Same is true where I live (just north of Frankfurt Germany). Problem solved by aquiring a Bakfiets (cargo bike). I now cycle my boy to school and back, which is just below 50km/day. Lots of cycle paths here make this easy, although no where near the quality the Netherlands have. The only wait I experience is waiting for the odd S-Bahn at a rail crossing.

Where I grew up in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia, this phenomenon was well known and referred to as "soccer mom rush hour". It was a completely different set of congested streets than normal rush hour, as it was based on the types of errands that get run around the end of the school day, instead of being focused on commutes into and out of the city.

My habit has been to have my usual 09:50 standup and then run errands at 10:01–??. World’s real quiet then, don’t tell nobody!

Texas never really fully shut down except for a few weeks at the start of the pandemic, but a lot of office workers were or are working from home. I can definitely see leisure trips contributing to some of the traffic patterns noted in this article.

I think this impacts intercity travel as well. A trip from San Antonio to Austin on I-35 used to take around an hour in the early 2010s. Now, it's an hour and a half minimum, 2 hours if you're unlucky, even in the middle of a Friday afternoon back in March before vaccines were widely distributed beyond prioritized groups.

In the south of Italy where I am right now there appears to be a pattern of pre-lunch and pre-dinner rush hour. You get some pretty decent cycling paths along the sea between 1 pm and 5 pm which turn into what can only be described as death-wish-routes outside that time window.

I thought this was interesting. I’ve noticed the same pattern in Austin, although I’ve only lived here a few months so I can’t compare to pre-pandemic. But locally the traffic has been very light in the mornings and very heavy in the afternoons.