Labor Day traffic on the Maine Turnpike during the upcoming holiday weekend is expected to surpass volumes recorded last year, creeping up toward record highs recorded in 2019. 

“It has been going up,” said Erin Courtney, a spokesperson for the Maine Turnpike Authority. 

Last year, Courtney said the authority recorded 1,041,000 toll transactions, the key metric for measuring traffic volume, throughout the holiday weekend from Friday through Monday. This year, she said, the authority projects a volume of 1,071,000, an increase of nearly 3%. 

Already this year, Courtney said, traffic volumes appear higher. She said from June through August of 2023 alone, the authority recorded 26.5 million transactions on the turnpike, up 1.2 million from the 25.3 million recorded during the same period last year. 

Courtney said volumes over the Labor Day weekend had been on an upward trend, from 2013 through a record-high volume of over 1.12 million transactions during the holiday in 2019. 

“Year after year, traffic had been booming,” she said. 

The pandemic, Courtney said, led to a drop-off in volumes, but now the numbers are steadily going up once again, and she was sure that soon the levels would return to what was recorded in 2019. 

On Friday afternoon, Courtney was at the Kennebunk Service Plaza on the northbound side of the highway, greeting visitors. 

“When we did this at Memorial Day, it was not this busy,” she said, noting the steady flow of people into and out of the center. 

Along with authority officials, Miles the Maine Turnpike Moose mascot was on hand to take selfies with travelers and entertain visitors. 

Kim Ryan, 35, her husband, Jason Ryan, 38, and their two-year-old daughter Alexis, all from Boston, were on their way to their annual trip to Skowhegan. Alexis pointed at Miles and said, “Moose!” while her parents noted that traffic can sometimes be hectic on the trip up. 

“We try to go Friday morning versus Friday afternoon,” Kim Ryan said. 

Her husband said today, “I don’t think our estimated time of arrival has dropped,” in his phone’s navigation app. That’s a sign that the rest of the trip will be smooth, he said. 

Going home might be a different story. Jason Ryan said last year, what should have been a three-and-a-half-hour trip home took the family six hours due to traffic from York County through Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 

Courtney said she and Miles were at the service center to welcome visitors and offer directions and safety tips. She reminded drivers to be safe, wear their seat belts and observe speed limits. She noted construction zones in particular have different speed limits, even over the weekend when workers will not be there.

“They won’t be active, but there still could be places where lanes are narrowed, and there may be construction equipment,” she said.