Fourth of July holiday traffic expected to be busiest in nearly 2 decades

WASHINGTON - AAA says nearly 47 million people plan to travel for the July Fourth holiday in the coming days. They expect this to be the busiest July Fourth travel in nearly two decades.

More than a million Washington, D.C. area residents are planning to travel this July Fourth holiday including the Rosebloom family.

"My son is six, my daughter is three and a half so we just bought some fishing poles and we're going to try to go fishing with them," says Aaron Rosebloom

AAA says it started tracking July Fourth travel 18 years ago, but this year could go down as the busiest to date.

"So far, I don't know. We're going to head down 495 and out to Burke Lake so we'll see how bad it is."

"We're leaving early enough in the morning that we weren't too concerned about it and it's not that far so it didn't really play a factor in our decision making."

Blank traveled to the district ahead of the holiday with little to no traffic.

A trip usually ten minutes will reportedly take almost an hour, as travel times are expected to quadruple across the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

And despite higher gas prices compared to last year, travelers are expected to drive 50 miles or more this July Fourth. Nearly three million people are expected to fly.

"Baltimore moved pretty quickly. It took about 5 minutes to get through security. There were a lot of folks there for sure, but they handled the traffic well and people got on their planes and ultimately it was a pretty easy experience," says Jake Cohen.

If you're not flying, the worse day to drive is Tuesday afternoon between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Speeds could slow to 12 miles per hour creating what AAA describes as "getaway gridlock." The best advice? Leave in the wee morning hours or late at night.