Low gas prices, good weather, and college football games in Morgantown, Blacksburg and Huntington apparently proved to be the trifecta for Labor Day weekend traffic on the West Virginia Turnpike.
Traffic for the four-day holiday weekend was up 7.4 percent over Labor Day weekend 2014, an increase of about 32,000 toll transactions, Parkways General Manager Greg Barr said Wednesday.
The Turnpike handled a total of 466,977 toll transactions from Friday through Monday, with about 60 percent of the traffic falling on that Friday and Monday.
Toll revenues were up 7.3 percent over the 2014 weekend.
Despite a trend of about a 3 percent overall increase in Turnpike traffic this year, the spike in Labor Day weekend traffic surprised Parkways officials, particularly after Fourth of July weekend traffic was up only about 1 percent over 2014.
"We downplayed it so much this year," Steve Maynard, director of tolls, said of the Labor Day traffic.
Labor Day is also the less traveled of the three summer long holiday weekends, he noted.
"It was like a busy summer weekend," Maynard said of the Labor Day weekend.
By comparison, the July Fourth weekend brought more than 553,000 toll transactions.
However, he said Parkways officials are encouraged by the continuing upward trend in Turnpike traffic.
"We're pleased with these numbers," Maynard said. "Now if we can just keep the numbers going in that direction."
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