According to Forbes, http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/galleries/forbes_most_congested_cities/forbes_most_congested_cities.html#ph0
Of the ten most congested cities for automobile traffic, the majority of them by far have Thursday at 5pm as the worst time to drive. (New York is actually Friday, but most of the others are Thursday).
Any particular reason – how many people work on Thursday that dont on say, Wednesday?
It’s not Friday, because many people leave early on Friday (especially with hours cut back due to the Bush economy). And some have to stay late to finish something up. So Friday traffic spreads out over a longer time period, and so is less congested.
Good points, very good.
But – Then why is NY’s friday the busiest – and why Thursday and not wednesday?
I guess less people in NYC leave early on Friday. I know in some high paying jobs they expect you to work some on Sat too, especially for new people right out of college. There might be a lot of those jobs in NYC.
And to add to that, I Friday is probably also the last day of the week for some people or at least the last day they stay a full day.
Another thing which probably only adds very very very slightly to it is that in colleges Thursday is typically party night so you also have college kids that just finished class (or work if there’s no class) trying to get to their dorm/apartment/living space so they can get cleaned up and ready for the party.
Thursday is the new Friday.
(that line is actually in a book I’m reading about traffic, called… Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt. Excellent piece of work)
A lot of people also work 4/10s or 9/80s, so there are likely less people going to work on Friday. That is, without a doubt, the case in my area.
Nine Eighties? That’s a hellishly long work week! I hope they aren’t on salary.
Just a WAG, but could it be because for a lot of people Thursday is payday and this persuades more people to go to work on that day?
Is there any data on absenteeism for every day of the week that may show it’s less on Thursday?
For every single job I’ve ever had payday was on Thursday, yet every one of those checks I got was dated the next day, Friday. 
I think in the San Francisco Bay Area, Friday evening is the worst. Strangely though, Friday mornings have very little traffic. Monday’s have very little traffic as well. My WAG is that more people take vacations on Monday on Friday, hence less traffic. Except on Friday evenings lots of non-commuters drive somewhere for the weekend. All the extra non-commuters on Friday evening add up to a lot of people and make traffic horrendous. I suspect NYC is the same - people heading out to Long Island or Connecticut or elsewhere.
In towns and cities with a big on campus college population Thursday is the “go back home to mom & dad & get laundry done” time if they have no Friday classes. Depending on the local college populations this can dump several thousand kids into the Thursday late afternoon traffic stream. People with flexible schedules taking a 3 day weekend is also a good bet.
9/80 means work 9 days over two weeks for a total of 80 hours. IOW, alternate weeks working 4/10 with weeks working 5/8.
I’d also put a lot of that, especially in those cities specifically showing Thurs peaks, as high tech areas, with lots of “work from home” on Fridays.
I don’t get much work done when I “work from home,” so I come into the office 5 days a week. Others on my team “work from home” 1 or 2 days a week. (My nearly 4yo Butlerette doesn’t understand that Daddy has to work, and can’t play, so I tend to come in… besides, my monitor is bigger in the office, and I have 5 digit dialing here and my headset as well :D)
Oh, Thanks! I thought either that was a typo, or something I had never heard of.
I could live with 9 nine-hour days and a 5 day weekend! (Saturdays and sundays are just like every other day in the restaurant business)