Millions of Texans Will Take to the Road Over the Memorial Day Weekend

Over the Memorial Day weekend, you can expect lots of traffic.

According to AAA, 2.8 million Texans plan to travel at least 50 miles during the holiday weekend.

It would mean a 60% increase over last year, when many people were locked in their homes quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Travelers are expected to drive 93% of the time during the holidays.

Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, U.S. highways will be busier than last year, but AAA predicts that traffic will not exceed pre-pandemic levels.

According to AAA officials, travel will increase because more Americans have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

AAA expects more than 37 million people to travel at least 50 miles from home during the holiday weekend, increasing 60 percent over last year, which was the lowest since AAA began keeping records in 2000.

Even if the AAA forecast is right, it will still be 6 million people, or 13% fewer than left home over Memorial Day in 2019.

According to AAA, 34 million Americans will drive between May 27th and May 31st, a 52% increase over last year, and nearly 2.5 million will fly, nearly six times as many as the same time last year. A few will take buses or trains.

The Transportation Security Administration reports that nearly 1.5 million people have gone through airport checkpoints per day so far in May. According to AAA, its air-travel forecast seems low because it only counts each traveler once, while TSA counts someone twice if they take a round-trip flight.

I will be commuting from Austin to Temple and Temple to Killeen over the weekend, and I am not looking forward to the influx of traffic this weekend.

Please be safe if you do decide to travel by automobile this weekend.

Also, keep an eye on those gas prices. They've gone up again.