Labor Day weekend brings the unofficial end of summer and with it droves of travelers to Vacationland.
Summer is peak tourist season in Maine, and they're expecting plenty of cars on the roads this weekend.
According to the Maine Turnpike Authority, if you can avoid driving north between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Friday, you might be able to spare yourself the worst of holiday weekend slowdowns.
Erin Courtney, the turnpike’s outreach manager said this weekend’s vehicle numbers will likely get close to pre-pandemic "banner year" in 2019.
Three years, ago the authority recorded an all-time high of 1.1 million transactions between Friday and Monday of Labor Day Weekend.
“We definitely think we’ll be over a million, not sure if we’ll hit the 1.1,” she said during an interview with NECN & NBC 10 Boston.
That follows a summer, which this year, according to Courtney “was actually not what we were anticipating.”
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While the beginning of 2022 looked on track to hit a new record, July was not as “robust” as expected.
There was an improvement in August, which turnpike officials says appears to align with the rise then fall of gasoline prices.
If you need to drive south out of Maine on Monday, Courtney suggested trying to avoid traveling during an expected peak window between noon and 5 p.m.
