Maine expects travel boom for holiday weekend, despite high gas prices
File Photo / William Hall
As shown in this file photo from one year ago, turnpike traffic on the Friday eve of the 2020 Memorial Day weekend was light. This year's volume is expected to soar 76% above that level.
Mainers and visitors are expected to hit the road this weekend in numbers not seen since before the pandemic, despite record-high gasoline prices.
That’s the mirror opposite of the outlook a year ago, on the eve of the Memorial Holiday weekend, the traditional start to Maine’s tourism season.
Nationwide this year, more than 37 million people were expected to travel 50 miles or more between Thursday and the Monday holiday, AAA recently said in a news release. That number is an increase of 60% from last year, in the early months of the pandemic. Only 23 million Americans traveled then, the lowest level since AAA began recording the data in 2000.
However, the 2021 rebound still represents 13% — or nearly 6 million — fewer travelers than in 2019.
In Maine, the outlook is a little brighter. The Maine Turnpike Authority expects traffic to be up 76% over last year's Memorial Day weekend, when only 564,000 toll transactions occurred over the four-day period of Friday through Monday.
Roughly 984,000 vehicles are predicted to be on the pike, the MTA said in a news release Thursday, which is only 3% lower than the same period in 2019.
The heaviest traffic northbound is expected to occur on Friday between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. The heaviest southbound traffic is expected on Monday, especially near the New Hampshire border at the Piscataqua River Bridge, where tens of thousands of vehicles will depart the state in the afternoon hours, the MTA said.
Unlike 2020, when fueling up for holiday trips was inexpensive, gas prices this year are expected to be the highest for a Memorial Day weekend since 2014.
Nationally, the current average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline is $3.04 per gallon, 16 cents more than a month ago and $1.08 per gallon higher than last year, according to AAA. In Maine, the price is a bit less, currently around $2.70 per gallon.
Over the 2020 Memorial Day weekend, gas prices in Maine were well below $2 a gallon, the lowest price range in several years.
Driven by the Colonial Pipeline outage earlier this month and by renewed demand, current prices could stay elevated all summer, AAA said.
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