CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The General Manager for the state Parkways Authority said travelers on the West Virginia Turnpike decreased minimally during this past Memorial Day holiday weekend compared with 2012.
Traffic decreased about 1.25 percent, adding up to 7,000 fewer transactions, between Thursday and Monday, Greg Barr said. That’s a smaller holiday travel decline than the turnpike saw in recent years, when declines of between 2 percent and 3 percent were typical.
According to the toll collection numbers, the busiest day on the turnpike for the holiday weekend was Friday with 145,000 transactions. A total of 118,000 transactions happened on Thursday followed by 114,000 on Monday.
Barr said the budget for the Parkways Authority in the coming year reflects a projected overall 2-percent decline in turnpike traffic.
“Hopefully, we’ll do better, but it’s a conservative estimate. We’d much rather be surprised in a good way than in a bad way about what our budget is,” he said.