Good weather and an urge to travel brought more than a million passenger vehicles to the Maine Turnpike over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, likely breaking a record set in 2019.
The final numbers collected at toll booths along the 109-mile toll road from Kittery to Augusta are not yet in, but they are on pace to top the previous record of 1.01 million set four years ago. The estimated 1.05 million is about 6.2 percent higher than travel over last year’s holiday weekend, turnpike spokesperson Erin Courtney said.
“We were certainly expecting it to be a busy weekend, and the weather cooperated,” she said. “It is indicative of passenger traffic coming back.”
The highest amount of traffic, some 335,000 vehicles, came through on Friday, with the York tolls having the most activity.
The toll road — which runs through York, Cumberland, Androscoggin and Kennebec counties in the southern portion of Maine —is a key economic indicator for the state, reflecting tourism activity. On a typical day it carries about 10 percent of the state’s traffic.
Annual traffic has been rebounding since 2020, when COVID-19 restrictions dropped traffic almost 22 percent to 70.57 million compared with 2019, according to turnpike data. Traffic was back up to 87.96 million in 2022, which is still almost 3 percent below the 2019 level.