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| ▲ The Gyeongbu Expressway in southern Seoul is packed with vehicles on Feb. 13, 2025, a day before the Lunar New Year holiday period. (Yonhap) |
(LEAD) Lunar New Year-traffic
(LEAD) Highway traffic eases slightly on 1st day of Lunar New Year holiday
(ATTN: UPDATES with latest figures throughout; RECASTS headline)
SEOUL, Feb. 14 (Yonhap) -- Traffic on major highways eased slightly across South Korea on Saturday afternoon, the first day of the five-day Lunar New Year holiday.
The nation will mark the major holiday, known as Seol, on Tuesday. Celebrated by family reunions and ancestral rites, the holiday period began over the weekend and runs through Wednesday.
As of 5 p.m., a drive from Seoul to the southeastern port city of Busan, 330 kilometers away, was expected to take approximately four hours and 30 minutes, down slightly from nearly seven hours in the morning, according to the state-run Korea Expressway Corp.
A trip to the southwestern city of Gwangju, some 260 kilometers south of the capital, was expected to take three hours and 20 minutes.
Travel times heading toward Seoul were similar, with the drive from Busan expected to take four hours and 30 minutes, and the trip from Gwangju estimated at three hours and 20 minutes.
The agency estimated that 4.85 million vehicles would travel nationwide Saturday, including 460,000 cars leaving the greater Seoul area and 370,000 heading toward it.
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