Violet Quick would probably have gone to Ocean City for the Memorial Day weekend, but with the price of regular gasoline closing in on $4 a gallon, she decided to stay home and have a cookout.
Quick - whose Suzuki Swift sports an "I am from Pigtown. Washington Village Does Not Exist" bumper sticker - hopes to get to the Shore this summer, but she isn't sure she'll be able to if fuel costs remain high. She was paying $3.89 a gallon yesterday to fill the Suzuki at the Royal Farms store in Lansdowne.
"The way it looks, I might not be going down the ocean," said Quick, who works for United Cerebral Palsy.
According to AAA Mid-Atlantic, Marylanders appear to have cut back on travel for the traditional kickoff of the summer travel season in significantly greater numbers than the organization projected just last week.
AAA spokeswoman Ragina Averella said yesterday that some of the key indicators of travel in the region showed greater decreases than expected.
For instance, Maryland Transportation Authority figures show that the Bay Bridge carried 3 percent fewer vehicles over the holiday weekend than last year. The authority had projected that 355,000 vehicles - a 3 percent increase over 2007 - would make the crossing, but only 333,498 motorists used the bridge going in both directions.
"If that's the case, then the high cost of gas is the likely culprit," said Averella.
Ocean City reported a 13 percent decline in visitors compared with last year - down to 226,700 from 259,800 - despite four days of near-perfect weather.
Travel along the Interstate 95 corridor also was down sharply. Traffic on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, one of the busiest crossings between Washington and New York, fell by 5.6 percent. Toll collections at the I-95 plaza in Perryville dropped about 6 percent. Traffic at the Fort McHenry Tunnel was down 7 percent.
In Maryland, the price of gas continued to inch closer to $4 as the statewide average for regular unleaded hit $3.93 yesterday, setting a record for the 21st straight day.
The price of crude oil, the primary cause of the increases at the pump, seemed to moderate in early trading yesterday, only to rebound to above $131 a barrel by the time trading closed.
At the Lansdowne Royal Farms, some gas-pumping customers said the prices haven't changed their travel habits. But others said the pummeling at the pump had curbed their appetite for travel.
