Skip to footer

Outlook for Memorial Day travel: congested!

Memorial Day weekend marks the start of the summer travel season. Looks like the 2014 holiday is going to be a doozy, with about 1 in 10 Americans planning to get out of town.

|
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP/File
A total of 36.1 million people are expected to travel 50 miles or more this Memorial Day weekend, auto club AAA is predicting. If that estimate holds, the largest number of people will be traveling during this US holiday since 2005. This photo shows thickening traffic on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend last year, in Chicago.

More than 31 million Americans – about 1 in 10 – are revving up to hit the road this Memorial Day weekend, according to AAA’s annual travel forecast. And another 5 million plan to take to the air, ride the rails, or float.

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional kickoff to the summer travel season, and this year's holiday weekend is expected to hit a nine-year high as winter-weary Americans head out of town, according to AAA Chief Operating Officer Marshall Doney.

“As we enter into the summer travel season with warmer temperatures and tulips in bloom, thoughts of historic cold are still fresh in the minds of Americans in many parts of the country,” Mr. Doney said in a statement. “The winter blues appear to have given Americans the travel bug and a case of cruise cabin fever as travel for the holiday is expected to hit a new post-recession high.”

“As the economy continues to improve at a slow and steady pace, consumer spending, disposable income, consumer confidence and the employment outlook are trending up, which is welcome news for the travel industry,” he continued. 

Leisure air travel is expected to rise slightly, with 2.6 million Americans holding plane tickets for this weekend. Another 1.7 million people are expected to board a cruise, train, or bus.

However, the overwhelming majority travelers – 88 percent – will be loading up the car and hitting the roads, which could make for slow-going on busy highways.

Some states, including Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri, have announced that transportation authorities will pause highway construction projects over the weekend in an effort to accommodate traffic swells.

"Memorial Day weekend historically marks the unofficial start of summer with thousands of motorists expected to hit the road to join family and friends to celebrate," Illinois Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider told Quad-Cities Online. "To reduce potential roadway congestion, improve safety and traffic flow, IDOT is suspending all non-emergency roadwork where possible and also providing a list of lane closures in advance to help motorists plan their trips."

There shouldn’t be too much sticker shock at the gas pumps, barring unforeseen problems at refineries, which could push prices higher. AAA estimates that prices will be similar to last year's, at $3.63 a gallon.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Association urges motorists to remain alert on the road this holiday weekend. In 2012, there were 377 crash-related fatalities during the Memorial Day weekend, according to the NHTSA.

NHTSA also warns drivers to remember to buckle up this weekend, noting that law enforcement agencies across the US use the kickoff to the summer road-trip season to enforce “Click It or Ticket."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Outlook for Memorial Day travel: congested!
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0523/Outlook-for-Memorial-Day-travel-congested
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe