Eclipse traffic & safety

VTDigger is monitoring traffic and public safety issues related to the eclipse on Monday. Refresh this page for the latest updates.

• Vermont officials estimate 160K people drove to the state for Monday’s eclipseApril 10, 2024, 4:21 pm

  

  Vermont officials estimate that some 160,000 people traveled by car into the state ahead of Monday’s total solar eclipse, based on preliminary data collected by the state Agency of Transportation.

  Those people came in some 60,000 vehicles, state officials said Wednesday, noting they started measuring the traffic volume last Friday. Those figures match the upper limits of what the state was projecting in the leadup to the eclipse. 

  Officials also praised both visitors’ and Vermonters’ conduct on the roads, noting there were fewer accidents on Monday than during last week’s snow storm. The state received reports on 10 accidents, Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn said. 

  “Everyone behaved tremendously on the highways, waterways, in the sky,” Flynn told reporters at a press conference. “The sheer volume of visitors, traffic, aircraft and congestion — all with such low incidents … was nothing short of remarkable.” 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS5TpAc7Y6A

  Vermont’s roadside welcome centers saw correspondingly high use — about 35,000 visitors statewide, according to Eric Forand, director of Vermont Emergency Management. That’s about three times as many visitors as the welcome centers saw on Indigenous People’s Day last fall, Forand said — a major travel day during peak foliage season. 

  As expected, traffic bogged down Vermont’s interstates going northbound up until the hour of totality, and then quickly clogged southbound lanes afterward. 

  Some of the slowest speeds lasted from minutes after the eclipse until 2 a.m. Tuesday morning along Interstate 89 between Colchester and the New Hampshire border. On that stretch, the average speed was about 45 mph lower than normal, with the slowest recorded average speed coming in at just 5 mph, Flynn said. 

  

  Traffic speeds appeared only marginally faster following the eclipse on I-91 between Newport and the Massachusetts border, he said — about 38 mph below normal.

  At the same time, Flynn told reporters that the state saw historic levels of private airplane traffic into Vermont’s airports.

  

  Vermont’s 10 state-owned airports saw 248 total airplanes land on Monday. Most of the planes flew — predictably — into northern Vermont, Flynn said, with 91 planes arriving at Northeast Kingdom International Airport in Coventry and 51 at Franklin County State Airport in Highgate. 

  By comparison, Flynn said, Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport — which is by far the state’s busiest and is owned by the city of Burlington — saw just 201 plane landings over a full recent week.

  He also noted that flights started taking off after the eclipse from Vermont quickly: two departures every minute within the first half-hour following the totality. 

  “They didn’t stay long,” Flynn said. 

  

  Flynn also said that Vermont’s two Amtrak routes saw consistently higher ridership in the days leading up to the eclipse than they normally do at this time of year. Ridership on the train lines, which connect to New York City and Washington, D.C., was more in line with foliage season or busy ski weekends, Flynn said. 

  Flynn and other officials told reporters that the state expects to have more data — including on the economic impact of eclipse visitors — in the coming weeks. 

• As visitors depart and traffic wanes, Vermont begins to tally eclipse’s impactApril 9, 2024, 1:06 pm

  

  Updated at 1:29 p.m.

  As visitors continued to depart Vermont a day after the total solar eclipse drew crowds of thousands, public safety officials from around the state said they were still tallying estimates of how many cars and people had shown up.

  But two things seemed clear on Tuesday morning, they said: A whole lot of people came to Vermont. And although outbound traffic was significant in the hours after the main event Monday afternoon, extending southbound drive times by hours in some cases, no major crises had befallen the state.

  In fact, some authorities said, many motorists among the masses were downright pleasant. 

  “People were very patient, respectful, rolling down their windows to say thank you to us,” said Newport Police Chief Travis Bingham, who described the crowds as the largest he’s seen in his 20 years of working for the Northeast Kingdom city.

  St. Johnsbury Town Manager Chad Whitehead shared a similar report, saying of traffic-jammed motorists: “They understood.”

  And Lt. Tom Howard, acting commander of the Vermont State Police barracks in Berlin, was “thankful” about how the day turned out, even amid massive traffic. 

  “Everyone that I got to see seemed to be in a pretty good mood,” he said. 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS5TpAc7Y6A

  The day was not without incident. Mark Bosma, a spokesperson for Vermont Emergency Management, said at least 10 traffic accidents with injuries were reported on Monday, though he was not sure of the severity.

  Howard said state police got a few calls from people who were stranded or stuck on back roads that their GPS told them to take, not realizing how tricky the roads would be.
  
  Similarly, Vermont State Police Capt. Matt Daley said although there were no major crashes, he received word of a few “fender benders” and tow requests. 

  The biggest traffic choke points Daley observed were the intersection of interstates 89 and 91 in White River Junction, and farther south on I-91 where bridge construction forced motorists into a single lane in the Putney/Westminster area. Traffic was generally quite slow but not stopped, he said.

  Overall, Bosma said, things went well from the emergency management team’s perspective. The “biggest issue was the need for water” at the southbound welcome centers in Sharon, Lyndonville and Williston, mostly due to “the wells needing a little time to refill themselves with all the extra flushes and hand washing,” he said in an email exchange. However, portable toilets at the sites ensured bathroom facilities were available. 

  In addition to other alerts, the state reported parking at capacity in St. Johnsbury and Newport in the hours before the eclipse, which took place shortly before 3:30 p.m.

  

  The state had previously projected as many as 160,000 people — about a quarter of Vermont’s population — could come to the state for the big event,  generally considered a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence that lasts for a few minutes or less. On Tuesday, Bosma said the state would “look at indicators over the next days and weeks to come up with an estimate” for how many people actually arrived. 

  But Bingham, the Newport chief, was already making a comparison to some of Vermont’s other biggest events, including a rock band’s infamous 2004 break-up concert that drew some 68,000 people to nearby Coventry.

  “The only other thing was the Phish concert, but we didn’t get a lot of spillover from that,” Bingham said. He estimated there were at least 20,000 eclipse-watchers in Newport on Monday, a nearly fivefold increase of its normal population. 

  Howard, in the Berlin barracks, said that the area had slow-moving traffic until at least 9 p.m. 

  “I’m from out of state, so it looked like an evening commute in the state I’m from,” he said. “But certainly not something that I have seen in Vermont in my time working here.”

  Maggie Cassidy contributed reporting.

• Traffic fills southbound lanes as Vermont’s eclipse visitors head homeApril 8, 2024, 5:04 pm

  

  Updated at 5:56 p.m.

  Those who drove to northern Vermont in recent days to view the total solar eclipse Monday afternoon quickly poured into the southbound lanes of Vermont’s interstate highways and other roadways later after the astronomical event concluded.

  They flooded the streets of Burlington, Montpelier, St. Albans, Middlebury and other towns and cities across the state, causing backups in many places.

  In Montpelier, a sliver of sun had only just reappeared from behind the moon, but already the first groups of people were up and shooting across the Statehouse lawn. There had been upwards of a thousand people gathered there to watch the eclipse, but within ten minutes of totality only about half remained. With an almost-total eclipse still in the sky, traffic had already reached a standstill in both directions on State Street.

  As of 5:45, online traffic websites showed heavy traffic on nearly all roads heading south out of the state, including interstates 89 and 91, as well as Routes 100 in Waterbury, 14 in Newport, 5 in St. Johnsbury, 7 in Shelburne and 22A in Vergennes. 

  https://youtu.be/sS5TpAc7Y6A

  Along Interstate 89, southbound traffic appeared particularly congested near Williston, Richmond, Waterbury, Middlesex, Montpelier, Berlin, Royalton, Sharon and Rockingham. On Interstate 91, traffic was slow near Newport, Lyndon, St. Johnsbury, Ryegate and Bradford. 

  Shortly after the eclipse Monday afternoon, Eric Forand, director of Vermont Emergency Management, told Vermont Public that, for those who came to the state from elsewhere, “the exit is a little harder than getting here.”

  

  

  

  

  

  “We’re hoping that everyone is nice and patient,” Forand said. “We’re looking for everyone to stay out of the breakdown lanes so emergency traffic can get through.” 

  His advice to travelers: “If you can stay a little bit longer, please do.”

  Juan Vega de Soto contributed reporting. 

• Parking at capacity in St. Johnsbury ahead of eclipseApril 8, 2024, 2:33 pm

  The town of St. Johnsbury has no more public parking available, its police department wrote on social media around 1:45 p.m. Monday.

  The notice came shortly before a total solar eclipse was to reach the northeastern Vermont town.

  St. Johnsbury, where the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium is located, was expected to be a major destination for out-of-town visitors.

• Newport City reaches public parking capacity as eclipse approachesApril 8, 2024, 1:42 pm

  As the eclipse in Vermont neared on Monday, Newport City officials reported that the municipality was at full capacity for public parking.

  “Parking is full,” the city’s police department posted on its Facebook page a little after noon, adding, “Please seek alternate locations outside of Newport.” 

  The Orleans County city in northern Vermont, at Exit 27 on Interstate 91, sits along the shores of Lake Memphremagog and just a few miles from the Canadian border. Like much of the northeastern portion of the state, it’s expected to have clear skies when the total eclipse occurs around 3:30 p.m.

• Traffic delays mounting as eclipse nears VermontApril 8, 2024, 12:51 pm

  

  Updated at 1:04 p.m.

  Traffic heading north through Vermont late Monday morning grew heavy and speeds slowed as eclipse chasers tried to make it to locations where they could view the total solar eclipse that afternoon. 

  Interstates 89 and 91 were both experiencing traffic backups in northbound lanes, particularly between Exit 4 in Putney and Exit 5 in Westminster, Mark Bosma, a spokesperson for Vermont Emergency Management, said a little before noon Monday. 

  Traffic was stop-and-start in the area and was not exceeding 20 miles per hour. The delays may have been exacerbated by one-lane traffic at a bridge reconstruction project between the two exits. 

  Exit 10 on Interstate 89 in Waterbury also had “significant” delays due to heavy traffic created by those heading north on Route 100 toward Stowe, Bosma said. 

  There were also delays on Interstate 89 in the northbound lanes between Exit 2 in Sharon and Exit 3 in Bethel/Royalton. 

  And around 12:45 p.m., New England 511 reported heavy delays and backups in the northbound lanes of Interstate 91 from North Hartland to the highway’s junction with Interstate 89. That interchange was expected to see heavy traffic through the early afternoon.

  State-run welcome centers along the interstates in Sharon and Guilford had “a ton” of visitors, according to Bosma.

  “They’re working to keep up,” he said, referring to staff at those locations. 

  Bosma said motorists should be aware there are also portable toilets on interstate pull-offs, specifically on Interstate 91 in Coventry, both north and south, and in Bradford south and Westminster south, as well as on Interstate 89 in Waterbury, north and south.

  Real-time traffic updates were available at New England 511 and road closures on Vermont Emergency Management’s website. 

  The line for Tesla charging stations at the Price Chopper in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, just across the Vermont border, had stretched from the lot next to the grocery store out onto the main thoroughfare, Route 12A, by 11 a.m. 

  Asked if travelers heading north through Vermont from White River Junction would make it to a destination like St. Albans in time for the eclipse, Bosma replied, “That’s a good question.”

  Kevin O’Connor and Maggie Cassidy contributed reporting.

• Vermont Welcome Center reports up to a threefold rise in pre-eclipse trafficApril 8, 2024, 7:31 am

  

  Updated at 8:06 a.m.

  GUILFORD — The Vermont Welcome Center at Interstate 91’s southern gateway has reported up to a threefold jump in visitor traffic preceding Monday’s eclipse.

  The state’s most utilized rest area saw traveler numbers rise 200% Friday, from 612 a year ago to 1,825; then spike 225% Saturday, from 1,089 to 3,541; and increase 168% Sunday, from 1,837 to 4,924, tallies show. Visits to other state travel centers were also up, according to Vermont Emergency Management spokesperson Mark Bosma — particularly those in Sharon, Waterford and Bradford. 

  “It’s hard to tell if this is all eclipse driven or not, but the traffic heading north is tremendous,” said Lisa Sanchez, manager of the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services’ information centers division. “This is a perfect storm due to the fact that we had a foot and a half of fresh snow on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”

  The state Agency of Transportation has estimated that up to 160,000 visitors may travel to Vermont in as many as 60,000 vehicles, all to join residents in seeing a partial eclipse starting Monday at 2:14 p.m., a 3-minute total eclipse in some parts of the state at 3:26 p.m., and then back to a partial eclipse until 4:37 p.m.

  A state study conducted with the University of Vermont’s Transportation Research Center found that most drivers headed to Vermont would come from the south, particularly Massachusetts and Connecticut. Amy Tatko, a spokesperson for the state transportation agency, said Sunday that officials were also expecting an increase in volume from the west, given that eclipse-viewing conditions in New York were expected to be less optimal than in Vermont.

  Then again, weekend travelers playing license plate bingo at the Guilford welcome center could spot every state along the East Coast, as well as such bonus points as Texas.

  Bob and Barbara Gelmetti, two of many from the parking lot’s most represented state of Connecticut, booked a short-term rental in Barre a year ago after discovering hotel rooms along the path of totality in Burlington were already “cost prohibitive.”

  “Why do people go to Times Square?” Bob Gelmetti said when asked for his reason for traveling. “To share the experience with others. This is an event.”

• How to safely watch the solar eclipse in VermontApril 8, 2024, 6:47 am

  

  With as many as 160,000 people expected to travel to Vermont on Monday to see a rare total solar eclipse, officials are advising visitors and locals alike to stay safe and be prepared. 

  The Red Cross has provided five key safety tips for those traveling to the event: 

  — Pack an emergency kit, just in case you get stuck in traffic or have to hunker down overnight. That should include water, food, flashlights, battery-powered radio, first aid kit, medications, multi-purpose tool, personal hygiene items (including toilet paper), cell phone chargers, extra cash, blankets, maps and emergency contact info. 

  — Check the weather forecast. In Burlington on Monday, highs are expected to be 62 degrees and lows 37 degrees. In Newport, highs are expected to reach 57 degrees and lows 35 degrees. 

  — Keep your gas tank full. You may be stuck in traffic for a while. 

  — Let somebody know where you’re going and how you’ll get there. 

  — Pick a meeting location, in case your group gets separated. 

  Water safety

  Though air temperatures are expected to be moderate around the time of totality Monday afternoon, state officials, the National Weather Service and the U.S. Coast Guard are warning those in Vermont to avoid waterways due to a high risk of hypothermia. 

  Water temperatures remain dangerously cold this time of year: in the 30s, in some places. In waters less than 40 degrees, hypothermia side effects can set it within a matter of minutes. That’s because water conducts heat away up to 25 times faster than air of the same temperature. Symptoms can include numbness and muscle weakness, and death can result. 

  Officials advise against viewing the eclipse from the water — and to be safe when observing it from shorelines of lakes, ponds and rivers. 

  Observation safety

  Looking at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed sun without eye protection is dangerous. Here are some safety tips from the American Astronomical Society:

  — Looking directly at the sun is only safe during the brief phase of totality, when the moon completely blocks the sun — and that will only take place in certain parts of Vermont. 

  — At all other times (and in all other places) it’s essential to view the sun only through special-purpose solar filters, such as “eclipse glasses.” Regular sunglasses will not do the trick. 

  — Make sure to inspect solar filters before use to ensure they’re not damaged. Read instructions and supervise children’s use of glasses. 

  — If you usually wear eyeglasses, keep them on and put eclipse glasses over them. 

  — Do not look at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed sun through an ordinary camera, telescope or binoculars — even while wearing eclipse glasses. 

  Eclipse etiquette 

  In addition to staying safe, you might also consider being polite! The state has offered these tips for eclipse etiquette: 

  — Find a safe, open, accessible site to view the eclipse. Plan to arrive ahead of time. 

  — Plan for lodging and travel, ahead of time. (If you haven’t already done so, it might be too late!)

  — Be considerate of others. You’re not the only one looking up at the sky. 

  — Follow guidelines and don’t be a rule-breaker. 

  — Respect wildlife and natural areas. Note that many trails are closed because of muddy and icy conditions. Stick to valleys and open areas to avoid damaging recreational trails and vegetation. Don’t feed the bears, guys. 

  — Dispose of waste properly.

• On eclipse day, text and email safety alerts available in VermontApril 8, 2024, 6:03 am

  As eclipse-watchers converge on Vermont on Monday to glimpse the afternoon’s total solar eclipse, state officials and other organizations are promoting several methods to stay up-to-date on traffic and public safety.

  — Text VTECLIPSE to 888-777 for updates from state government. You can also request public safety alerts, both by text and email, from state government here.

  — Check the 511 New England website for updates on traffic and road closures. The website allows users to create individualized accounts through which they can enter a route and sign up for text and/or email alerts about conditions along that course. Users can also monitor road cameras throughout the state. 

  — On social media, look for messages with the hashtag #VTEclipse. 

  — The Red Cross is promoting its free “Red Cross First Aid” app, which provides information in case of emergencies. It’s available at redcross.org/apps.

  — The state has created a special eclipse website, with links to public safety updates and alerts, weather forecasts, maps, events and travel information.

  — Of course, you can watch the VTDigger website, here at vtdigger.org, where we’ll be posting updates throughout the day. Sign up for our email alerts, including breaking news. 

  Kevin O’Connor contributed reporting.