The Real Reason Everything Is Crowded—and How to Fix It

Elle Griffin has a bold proposal. She wants to do away with weekends, or at least the idea that we largely all need to work 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday. At the root of her argument is an anecdote: Griffin lives in Utah, and in her "Elysian" Substack she writes that she has watched the state debate what to do to resolve hourslong traffic jams caused by would-be skiers driving through Little Cottonwood Canyon. According to the Utah Department of Transportation, there are 39 hours a year where the road in question sees more than 1,000 vehicles per hour, and it's considering spending $500 million to eliminate those 39 hours—which Griffin points out only occur "because people want to go skiing when work is out."

The real issue isn't too many people or cars, but too many people wanting to do the same thing at the same time, she writes. This pattern repeats everywhere: from campgrounds that are empty during the week to gyms that are packed after 5pm. The culprit is the standardized workweek, a relic from the industrial era that no longer fits today's more flexible, often-remote work reality, she argues.

We've seen glimmers of the impact due to pandemic-related changes, like the 11% increase in Wednesday night dinner reservations OpenTable has seen due to remote work. "If even a quarter of the white-collar world adopted an asynchronous schedule, we could benefit local businesses, traffic congestion, even air quality," argues Griffin, who notes it's time for companies to be bold enough to lead the way. (Read her full argument here.)