This year’s Labor Day travel expected to surpass last year’s
The school year has already begun at most Butler County school districts, but Labor Day represents the unofficial end of summer, and, for many, one last chance for a summer getaway before the weather begins to cool and leaves start falling.
For those making a Labor Day trip this year, the wave of tariffs from the Trump administration isn’t expected to have too great a direct effect on the costs of going out, at least for now, said Jim Garrity, director of public affairs for AAA East Central.
According to AAA, as of Wednesday, Aug. 27, the average price of regular gasoline is $3.319, down nearly 20 cents from a year ago. Nationwide, the average price of regular gasoline is $3.208, down from $3.35 last year.
In addition, prices for domestic round-trip flights are averaging $720 a ticket, 6% cheaper than they were last year, with domestic hotels 11% cheaper and car rentals 3% cheaper. International hotels are also 2% cheaper than last year, although international flights are 8% more expensive.
“We're not really seeing the impact of (tariffs) quite yet,” Garrity said.
According to AAA, the top domestic travel destination for this Labor Day weekend is Seattle, while the top international destination is Vancouver.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission projects that 2.85 million drivers will use the Turnpike over a five-day period between Thursday, Aug. 28 and Monday, Sept. 1. According to Melissa Orbanek, press secretary for the Turnpike Commission, this would be a 5% increase over the same period last year if the projections come true.
“It's based off traffic data from last year, from the actual volumes that we had, compared to where we are based on this year’s current traffic data,” Orbanek said.
According to AAA and transportation data analyst INRIX, anyone traveling by car between Thursday, Aug. 28 and Monday, Sept. 1 will generally want to get started before 11 a.m., and will generally want to avoid hitting the road between noon and 5 p.m. For those traveling on Saturday, Aug. 30, the best time to hit the road is between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.
“When you have holidays falling on a Monday, you tend to see people take advantage of that extra day off and have a head-start on their trip, and they leave as early as Thursday or Friday. And those people will mix with commuters who are still going back and forth to work,” Garrity said. “If you can get out in the mornings and avoid those rush hours in the afternoon, that might be a good way to avoid some traffic.”
The turnpike will receive extra attention on Labor Day weekend from the Pennsylvania State Police Troop T, which covers the entirety of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Motorists traveling east using the Pennsylvania Turnpike will encounter the newly-introduced “open road tolling system”, which is gradually being introduced along the turnpike. Earlier this year, areas east of Reading, as well as the entirety of the Northeast Extension, have had tollbooths replaced with gantries — large overhead structures that automatically read EZPass transponders and license plates to deduct tolls.
The implementation of open road tolling west of Reading is still in progress.
“We've been actively constructing the overhead gantries on the Turnpike, west of Reading,” Orbanek said. “Most of them are in place right now. We're going to be actively building those gantries through the end of this year, and then it will go live in 2027.”
