Jul 3, 2009 3:09 am US/Eastern
Tri-Staters On The Go For Holiday Weekend
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
The forecast is on the minds of the many making an escape from New York this holiday weekend. Across the country, fewer people are leaving home – but in the Tri-State, it's the opposite.
Conductors shouted "all aboard" and some rail passengers were left to stand in the aisles of packed trains.
Travel by train and plane is, surprisingly, up this year compared to last, thanks to deeply discounted fares - but an estimated 88 percent of holiday travelers are driving themselves.
For Candy Bishop, it is a marathon: all the way from Maine to Virginia.
"We got stuck three hours in the Bronx to go ten miles," Bishop says.
If you're going to get stuck in traffic, there's one way to do it, as evidenced by one group heading for Atlantic City. In a Limo loaded with luxuries, there are fewer complaints – but even they were getting antsy.
"We'd like to go there," Midtown resident Jordan Bliss says. "We're really trying to get there."
Over in the same NJ Turnpike rest stop sat two vans crammed with kids – a long road trip full of short attention spans.
"We been hearing it since we left Long Island: 'When are we gonna stop?' 'I gotta use the bathroom,'" mother and Medford resident Almeade Rivera says. "But we're here and, thank God, we're making it."
AAA reports that fuel prices are down $1.50 per gallon compared to last year, so Tri-State travelers are not afraid to gas up and go, even in this tough economy.
"We found in the mid-Atlantic area, which incorporates New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, that travel is actually up 0.1 percent, which basically means it is steady compared to last year," AAA spokeswoman Michele Mount says.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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