BRISTOL, Tenn. – Tom Deloach had 90 minutes remaining on a trip to North Carolina Tuesday, when he pulled into the Interstate 81 Tennessee welcome center.
“The trip’s been pretty good, but traffic’s been busy,” Deloach said while taking his two dogs for a quick walk, as his wife and son headed for the restroom.
The three were trying to make an annual 450-mile holiday drive from their home in Morgantown, W.Va., to visit his wife’s family in Burnsville, N.C., Deloach said.
This year, the American Automobile Association predicts about 87.7 million people will drive or fly at least 50 miles for the holiday travel season, which starts today and ends Jan. 3.
This figure represents a 3.8 percent increase from last year’s holiday traveler total of 84.5 million Americans, said AAA East Tennessee spokesman Don Lindsay. Many of those people are likely to pass through the region at some point during their trips.
“It’s always a busy corridor,” Lindsay said of the Mountain Empire, which includes Interstates 81, 26 and 77. “Whenever there’s a chance people will be getting on the road, we’ll be seeing some of them.”
The welcome center’s parking lot seemed to back up Lindsay’s prediction Tuesday afternoon, featuring license plates from as far away as Massachusetts, New Jersey and Texas.
It also included people who were making a slightly shorter trips – like Sean Callahan – who stopped for a break from his 330-mile journey from classes at the University of Virginia’s medical school in Charlottesville to his family’s home in Jonesville, Va.
“It’s [traffic] been a little heavy but it’s definitely been worse [other times],” Callahan said of the traffic he’d encountered this trip. Callahan said he’s observed far more commercial truck traffic on the road but fewer cars and small trucks, compared to past years.
One possible reason is that the total number of Virginians expected to travel this holiday season is expected to decrease 4.6 percent, when compared to last year’s figures, AAA Mid-Atlantic spokeswoman Martha Meade said in a Tuesday written statement.
“Many area residents are still dealing with a variety of financial woes during the protracted economic downturn, including joblessness and the foreclosure crisis,” Meade said. “With these worries, some families and individuals won’t have the merriest of Christmases.”
Even with the forecast decrease, Meade said about 3 million Virginians – more than 38.1 percent of the state’s total population – will travel this year giving. If accurate, that would represent the state’s second highest traveler total this decade.
The vast majority – about 2.6 million – are expected to hit the roadways, Meade said.
Those travelers can expect to pay more for hotel rooms – compared to 2008 – but less for airline tickets and car rental fees, Meade said.
gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement