Turnpike Sees Increase in Thanksgiving Traffic

Officials say the West Virginia Turnpike had its highest Thanksgiving holiday travel period this year in at least a decade.

State Parkways Authority spokesman Greg Barr says there were more than 783,000 toll transactions along the 88-mile Turnpike between Wednesday and Sunday.

That’s an increase of 3 percent from Thanksgiving 2015 and 8 percent more than two years ago.

Barr says although he hadn’t checked records before 2006, he remembered that year and 2009 to be record years for travel with 774,000 transactions in 2006 and 772,000 in 2009.

On an average day, there are about 100,000 transactions.

Barr attributed this year’s increase to good weather and low gas prices. He says most holiday traffic consisted of out-of-state travelers, who make up 75 percent of transactions for the year.