Many fewer Marylanders are expected to travel this Labor Day weekend compared with last year - a phenomenon that has as much to do with a fluke of the calendar as the state of the economy.
AAA Mid-Atlantic is projecting a 14 percent drop from last year's Labor Day travels, which reached the highest levels in a decade.
Ragina Averella, a spokeswoman for AAA, pointed to this year's late Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 7.
"With the Labor Day weekend falling a week later than last year's holiday and many school districts opening as early as two weeks prior to Labor Day, it seems Marylanders are skipping the long weekend trip this year," Averella said in a news release. Still, she noted that the 692,000 Marylanders expected to travel would be the third-highest total this decade.
AAA expects the largest decline to come in air travel, which it predicts will decline 21 percent from last year's level. While 86 percent of Marylanders taking a Labor Day vacation will travel by car, only 4 percent will go by plane. The organization said stable gas prices, which are running about $1 a gallon below last year's level, will limit the decrease in auto travel to about 13 percent.
