Warns against long queues before the long weekend

Are you lucky enough to be taking a long weekend today? Then you have to prepare for traffic chaos.

Wednesday 8 May at 08:46

– Christ’s Ascension is set to be the big May departure weekend this year, and queues must be expected from the big cities, says section leader at the Road Traffic Center in Oslo’s east Christian Prydz.

Because on top of normal rush hour traffic, many people head out of the city to take a long weekend on Wednesday afternoon.

Here the queues can be the longest:

• From Oslo and southwards
• E6 against Sweden
• E18 towards Sørlandet
• Highway 555 towards Sotra from Bergen

On several of these roads, there has been a doubling of delays in previous years, compared to normal rush hour traffic.

– Elsewhere in the country, there is also a little extra traffic, and especially from the bigger cities. But the delays are nowhere near as big as in Oslo, with Bergen being a good second, says Prydz.

The Swedish Road Administration asks people to consider driving at other times than they had initially planned.

– Consider whether you can drive earlier or later in the day. If you drive between 14 and 18, you must be prepared for delays, especially if you are driving towards Sweden or towards the South from Oslo on this day, says Prydz.

Also during the journey home on Sunday, motorists have to deal with a lot of traffic.

– The traffic is spread out more on the journey home on Sunday, also because rush hour traffic is avoided as an additional factor, but especially the E18 through Telemark has had a lot of delay at 13-18, with a peak around 15, and near Drammen around 16-20, says Prydz.