ITRE in the News: How has the pandemic changed our travel habits? Triangle survey seeks to find out

Traffic on Interstate 40, looking east from Avent Ferry Road, in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, July 30, 2020. ETHAN HYMAN EHYMAN@NEWSOBSERVER.COM

From The News & Observer, February 24, 2021: Forty thousand households in the Triangle are receiving cards in the mail this month inviting them to take part in a survey that will be used to help plan the future of transportation in the region.

The coronavirus pandemic may seem an odd time to ask people about their travel habits. The shift of work, school and retail online has changed when and where people drive or take the bus. It’s unknown if they will return to their old ways when the pandemic ends.

The Triangle Travel Survey is carried out every two years to try to gauge how people behave over time, said Leta Huntsinger, a researcher at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education, or ITRE, at N.C. State University. Huntsinger said the agencies that use the survey findings, including the N.C. Department of Transportation, GoTriangle and the regional transportation planning organizations, agreed it didn’t make sense to skip the survey this time just because the results might be unusual. Read More