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PHILADELPHIA – Chickie’s & Pete’s continued its Memorial Day weekend tradition by covering tolls for drivers heading east through the Egg Harbor exit during the 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. rush hour. Despite higher gas prices and travel costs, demand for holiday travel remains strong, with steady traffic reported at Farley Plaza along the Atlantic City Expressway.<\/p>\n
Travelers take to the roads, rails, and skies for Memorial Day <\/p>\n
What we know:<\/p>\n
AAA says travel volume this Memorial Day weekend is similar to last year for all types of transportation. Jana Tidwell, AAA Public Affairs, said, “Demand for travel this weekend is strong. People are still willing to travel despite higher gas prices, despite higher jet fuel prices they\u2019re figuring out how to do it and how to cut back spending in other areas.”<\/p>\n
Travelers at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia chose trains over driving, with one person saying, “Did not want to make that five hour drive, decided let me take the train and just kind of have a relaxing ride.” Another traveler, Debbie Schiff, said, “Everything has gone very smoothly there haven\u2019t been any delays interruptions.”<\/p>\n
At Philadelphia International Airport, security lines were packed Friday afternoon. Sofia Stepanoff, who flew into Philadelphia, said, “They were really expensive and ticket prices were like $200 more than usual like we only checked one bag and we\u2019re going to ship it home rather than having to pay to bring the bags back on the plane it almost made us not come.”<\/p>\n
Why you should care:<\/p>\n
AAA predicts about 525,000 people from the Philadelphia five-county area will travel over the long holiday weekend. The tradition of Memorial Day travel continues to be important for families, even with higher costs.<\/p>\n
Max Goldman, who was driving to Margate City, said, “Look part of the fun is everyone\u2019s down there you get to see all your friends all your family so I think it\u2019s worth waiting in the car a little while to get there.”<\/p>\n
Families and friends are making memories, whether they\u2019re driving, taking the train, or flying.<\/p>\n
AAA\u2019s advice for the return trip <\/p>\n
What’s next:<\/p>\n
AAA says Monday is expected to be the big return home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They recommend leaving early in the morning or waiting until later at night to avoid traffic.<\/p>\n
Travelers are finding ways to manage higher costs, like shipping bags home or adjusting travel times, to make the most of the holiday weekend.<\/p>\n
The Source: Information from FOX 29\u2019s Jennifer Lee, AAA, and interviews with travelers.<\/p>\n
Travel News<\/a>Holidays<\/a>News<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA – Chickie’s & Pete’s continued its Memorial Day weekend tradition by covering tolls for drivers heading east…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3734,139,69,71,70,11148],"class_list":["post-200281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-holidays","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-travel-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}