Almost one million Washington-area residents will head out of town for the long Fourth of July weekend, although higher gasoline prices will keep more people home this year. With the cost of regular gas just below $4 per gallon in the Washington area, automobile travel will fall an estimated 3 percent over the holiday weekend from June 30 to July 4, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic.
Jesse Segal, a Bethesda native who is taking summer classes at Penn State University, said he is regretting his choice of car: a 1999 Dodge Durango that gets 11 mpg.
“I would be heading to Bethany Beach for the Fourth, but I just can’t afford it,” he said.
Even coming home to watch fireworks on the National Mall is out of the question, he said, estimating the round-trip cost to be $140.
Though pump prices are falling — they are about 40 cents a gallon cheaper than their May peak — gasoline still costs 80 cents more than at this time last year, which AAA spokesman Lon Anderson said is “enough to keep the number of travelers on the road from topping last year’s numbers.”
As for the 44 percent of Washingtonians who said gas prices would curtail their travel plans but not cancel them, they plan to economize in other areas and take a shorter trip or travel by other means.
About 10 percent fewer local residents plan to travel this weekend by rail, bus, watercraft or motorcycle compared with a year ago, AAA Mid-Atlantic estimates.
Air travel — the only exception — is projected to jump an anticipated 22 percent this year after two years of decline.
Jackie Anderson, a Fairfax native who works in Arlington, said her plans to visit college friends and see fireworks in Pennsylvania were foiled because of high gas prices. Now she said she is saving up for one big plane trip to Florida. And she said her friends are doing the same.
“I had all these grandiose plans for the Fourth of July, but I’m sticking around my home base because of the gas prices,” she said. “My friends are in the same predicament, and I’ve noticed a trend from making many short-distance car trips to making less frequent plane trips.”
AAA’s Anderson said studies confirm that trend.
“The increasing cost of travel by car is making air travel a more viable option for some travelers despite recent increases in airfares,” he said.
