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AAA expects New England Labor Day travel at pre-pandemic levels

Boston - February 18: Train tracks glow under the setting sun, and commuters cars cast long shadows on the Massachusetts Turnpike in rush hour traffic in Boston on Feb. 18, 2022. (Photo by Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
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Pre-pandemic traffic levels are expected for the Labor Day holiday weekend. "We saw an increase in holiday travel for both the Memorial Day and the Independence Day holidays, and we're expecting people to end the summer with a bang," said Tracy Noble, spokesperson for AAA in Greater Hartford.

End-of-summer travelers will likely take to the roads just like they did before there was a pandemic, according to a spokesperson for the American Automobile Association.

“AAA is expecting the Labor Day holiday to be back to pre-pandemic levels,” said Tracy Noble, spokesperson for AAA in Greater Hartford. “We saw an increase in holiday travel for both the Memorial Day and the Independence Day holidays, and we’re expecting people to end the summer with a bang. So they’re going to be taking those last summer road trips, and … the roads are going to be very busy.”

AAA doesn’t specifically track Labor Day numbers. That said, it predicted increased travel over Memorial Day and record-high car travel for the July 4th holiday, despite high gas prices. An AAA poll from early July showed that Connecticut drivers were still planning road trips and that gas prices didn’t deter them. So, given recent travel trends, Noble says she’s confident in the Labor Day assessment.

“Starting with Labor Day a year ago, we saw an increase in travel, and then, of course, through the winter holidays, Thanksgiving and then on to the year-end holidays,” Noble said. “Every holiday has seen an uptick coming out of the pandemic, so we’re not expecting anything different for Labor Day this year.”

Noble said that the recent cancellations and delays in airline travel have also encouraged more consumers to take the car. And she said gas prices don’t seem to have affected that decision much.

“Despite the record-high gas prices that we saw all summer, road travel was still the No. 1 way that people got around,” she said. “We’ve seen this entire summer that people just had pent-up energy to travel. So they had stopped traveling through the summer of 2020, even some residual into 2021, people were, you know, kind of dipping their toe back in. But for 2022, people were traveling with a vengeance.”

One factor that could drive some increased travel in Connecticut — some schools in the region go back later than schools in other parts of the country. So, Noble said, Labor Day could be a reason for one last road trip before classes start.

Jeff Cohen started in newspapers in 2001 and joined Connecticut Public in 2010, where he worked as a reporter and fill-in host. In 2017, he was named news director. Then, in 2022, he became a senior enterprise reporter.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

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You just read trusted, local journalism that’s free for everyone, thanks to donors like you.

If that matters to you, now is the time to give. Join the 50,000+ members powering honest reporting and a more connected — and civil! — Connecticut.

Connecticut Public’s journalism is made possible, in part by funding from Jeffrey Hoffman and Robert Jaeger.