Memorial Day Travel 2023: When To Get Out, Back To The NY Metro Area

NEW YORK — If you’re among the 42.3 million Americans expected to travel 50 or more miles from home over the long Memorial Day weekend, the auto club AAA’s travel forecast gives advance notice on when to get out of the Hudson Valley or Long Island and, especially, when to avoid the heaviest-traveled road over the holiday in the metro region — the Garden State Parkway.

AAA expects the six-day period to be the third-busiest since it began measuring Memorial Day travel a decade ago.

Most people will drive. Road trips are expected to be up 6 percent over last year, with about 37.1 million motorists on the roads.

As a result of lower gas prices compared to last year, “drivers should expect long delays this holiday weekend, especially in and around major metros as commuters mix with Memorial Day travelers,” said Bob Pishue, a transportation analyst at INRIX, AAA’s data partner in the forecast.

Major metro areas like Boston, New York, Seattle, and Tampa will likely see travel times double compared to normal.

The best times to travel by car are in the morning or evening after 6 p.m. The lightest traffic days will be Saturday and Sunday.

Here are more tips from AAA as Tri-State residents plan their road trips:

• When you’re leaving, avoid traveling from 3-6 p.m. on both Thursday and Friday. Instead, leave before 1 p.m. on Thursday and noon on Friday. In the NYC Metro area, the top-traveled route — to the Jersey Shore — is expected to be worst at 5 p.m. Friday, increasing travel time by more than an hour.
• At the end of the weekend, noon-3 p.m. Monday and 4-6 p.m. Tuesday are expected to be busy. Getting back, AAA estimates that peak congestion time will be 8 p.m. Monday (sunset will be 8:19 p.m.) and the average trip will take 2 hours and 42 minutes. Better times are before 10 a.m. Monday, and before 2 p.m. or after 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

With about 2 million more people than last year competing for space on highways, "That means more potential serious crashes," said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, citing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data showing from 2011-20, an average of over 410 people died in motor vehicle crashes each year during the holiday weekend.

Vacations make important and happy memories, Chase said. "They should not be shattered by tragedies that could have been avoided. Advocates’ 2023 Roadmap to Safety provides a comprehensive blueprint for local, state and federal actions needed to ensure all road users safely arrive at their destinations."

Even with lower gas prices, travel will be more expensive overall, in large part because of the rising cost of airline tickets. AAA said its booking data shows a 40 percent increase in airfares to this year’s top destinations. International travel is surging as well, with a 250 percent increase over 2022.

The holiday could be also one of the busiest at the nation’s airports since Memorial Day in 2005, with nearly 3.4 million people, an 11 percent increase from 2022, expected to fly.

SEE ALSO: Metro-North Offers Early Getaway Trains To Start Memorial Day Weekend