About 46.9 million Americans are expected to hit the road this Thanksgiving, AAA Travel says, and they’re in luck.
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The national average for regular unleaded gasoline is projected to be $1.99 per gallon by Thursday, 80 cents lower than past year and the cheapest since March 2009, according to GasBuddy.com, an online gas prices monitor.
“Holiday travel means crowded roadways, especially with lower gas prices”. Thanksgiving is a short holiday, people, if they’re going to fly, typically fly for Christmas.
Given the high volume of travel this Thanksgiving, travelers should brace themselves for delays.
Among the reasons given for the increase: an improving economy and the cheapest gasoline for this time of year since 2008.
“Back in Pennsylvania, it’s like you’re doing really good if you’re at $2.75 there”, Doud said.
Amtrak officials said a record amount of Thanksgiving travelers traveled by train past year.
“We have family in Arizona and Washington state and I think we will be making trips that we probably wouldn’t have been doing when gas prices ere much higher”, Pederson says.
The price of US crude oil fell 47 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $42.40 a barrel in NY on Wednesday. Tracy Noble, the spokesperson for AAA Mid-Atlantic said “we’ve seen such an increase over the past 7 years that it just kind of is leveling out at this point”.
“Oh, yeah”, she said while clutching the leash of her travel partner, a Doberman named Murphy Brown.
Bloomfield said travelers heading to the airport should try to arrive at least an hour and a half before their flight, and two and a half hours before for global flights.
The number of people leaving town for Thanksgiving is up this year, but experts say lower gas prices are not behind that. Air travel is expected to increase by 0.1 percent, with 3.6 million Americans flying to their holiday destinations.
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“This Thanksgiving, more Americans will carve out time to visit friends and family since 2007”. Busy traffic will be the case from Wednesday with people leaving and then on Sunday when people return home.
