Report: Evening traffic in U.S. downtowns hits a high in August

Hot weather and school vacations brought more office workers and tourists back to major urban centers last month.

During 5 p.m.-to-8 p.m., traffic was 23.9% lower than in August 2019—the first time since the 2021 holiday season that the pre-pandemic traffic gap dipped below 25% during the dinner period, according to the retail data analytics company Springboard.

Overall August downtown traffic was 38.9% higher than it was a year ago, and nearly four percentage points higher than it was last month. It was the third consecutive month that found more people streaming into America’s urban centers.

The just-released report from Springboard—which does retail traffic counting and sentiment tracking for retail brands and shopping centers—posited that the August traffic gains were bolstered by large numbers of workers returning to their offices while their children were home on vacation.

Substantiating that speculation was the fact that traffic increased on urban streets during breakfast and lunch periods, then weakened during the afternoon period when the bulk of city traffic is composed of people making tourist and leisure trips.