After clocking out, many Utahns who work in Salt Lake City head to their cars, click their seat belts, take a deep breath and brace for what’s next.

A trail of red brake lights. Stop-and-go lines of cars. And hopefully, eventually, a slightly speedier freeway.

The evening commute has always been — to put it mildly — not fun, but the COVID-19 pandemic made things worse, extending the window of rush hour, transportation officials say.

Before COVID, Salt Lake City traffic peaked in the evenings between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m, city transportation engineer Lynn Jacobs said. Now, traffic volumes remain high from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., likely due to flexibility in work schedules that were popularized during the pandemic, he said.

To help you plan a way around traffic jams, The Salt Lake Tribune developed an interactive map that shows Utah’s worst bottlenecks and when they happen. You can add your starting point and destination to see if your route hits one of the traffic jams.

City and state transportation officials have a few tips, too, for making your commute go down easier.

The faster way to the University of Utah

Jacobs’ first suggestion for getting around traffic might be unsatisfying: leave earlier or later.

“Your trip becomes a lot more reliable,” Jacobs said. “... If you travel during the peaks, especially on I-15 and other freeways that come in and out of downtown, you’re a lot more likely to see accidents that cause a lot of congestion during the peaks.”

For commuters who need to travel east to west, say, from the University of Utah to Davis County, Lynn suggests hopping on a road like 100 South instead of South Temple. Those South Temple traffic signals don’t operate as efficiently, he said, due to their connections to other roads in the Avenues.

But Jacobs’ top tip involves ditching your car altogether.

He has commuted from Davis County into Salt Lake County for almost 20 years, and taking transit is a 30-minute ride where he can do work, listen to a podcast or read a book without the stress of being stuck in traffic.

“It works differently for everyone,” Jacobs said. “… We’ve actually made a great partnership with UTA where we pay them to run a lot of our buses a lot more frequently than they otherwise would. And so maybe, if you tried transit 5 or 6 years ago and you found it didn’t work for you, you might want to try again.”

Your shortcut could cost you

When it comes to state-owned “arterial” routes, such as 700 East, 400 South and State Street, Utah Department of Transportation traffic engineer Kelly Njord recommends drivers stay on those roads, even when they are backed up, instead of taking a side street.

Transportation officials time traffic signals on arterial roads based on the speed limit and the dominant pattern of traffic, Njord said, so drivers who run red lights or take other roads to avoid crowded intersections often experience longer drive times.

“If you can keep your routes with as few turns as possible, that will keep you in that platoon that’s timed for you,” Njord said. “And follow major state corridors — those are all going to be prioritized over the smaller cross streets.”

Even lifelong Utahns, Njord said, should use an app like Apple Maps, Google Maps or Wayze to get up-to-date route information to find the fastest way home. Although she knows the roads forward and back, Njord does this herself to know any slowdowns that she may face on her favorite routes.

But beyond checking the apps, there isn’t a secret solution to overcoming traffic on Utah’s roads, Njord said.

“The secret is being willing to open up your driving app and put in your route and planning for it,” Njord said. “I think just a lot of people are like, ‘I know where I’m going, I don’t need it,’ but the fact that you’ve got it open serves two purposes: one, if you’re sharing your data, it feeds data that other people are receiving, and then you also know what’s going on.”