AAA says increased number of Virginians planning to travel this Memorial Day

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - About one million Virginians plan to travel this Memorial Day weekend. According to AAA that’s more than last year, but still not as many as just before the pandemic, making it about on par with numbers from 2017.

Ninety percent of those folks traveling tell AAA they will drive, this even as gas is more than $1.50 higher than last year.

The record-breaking average has held steady since Friday. But Morgan Dean with AAA Mid-Atlantic said Monday it’s too soon to tell exactly what will happen during the holiday and beyond.

“We’d love to see that turn into a dip where prices go the other way. But it’s very, very hard to say with any certainty whether or not that’s going to happen. Until we get at least past Memorial Day here and start to see what demand at the pumps looks like and see in fact how busy the roadways are out there.”

Dean said more than 60 percent of the price at the pump is directly related to crude oil prices.

Bans on Russian oil over the invasion of Ukraine continue to factor into the supply disruption.

You can hear more about AAA’s projections in our interview with Dean on the WDBJ7+ Digital News Desk here:

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