By Jake Palmateer
Staff Writer
Fewer New Yorkers will be hitting highways
and airports for the Thanksgiving
holiday, the AAA said.
Although nationwide, the number
of Americans expected to travel more than
50 miles from home this week is expected
to increase over last year by 1.4 percent,
there may be fewer state residents traveling,
said Robert Sinclair Jr., the auto
association’s New York manager of media
relations.
With the economy still struggling, an estimated
1.7 million New Yorkers will travel
by road more than 50 miles and 130,000 will
fly during the holiday week _ a decline
of 4.6 percent from a year ago, Sinclair
said.
At the Oneonta Holiday Inn on Southside,
reservations near Thanksgiving are
fewer than usual this year, said Jason Rivera,
the hotel’s director of sales.
“It’s been kind of slow in the past couple
of days,” Rivera said. “We have seen a few
reservations come in for Thursday and Friday
night.”
Despite a reduction in the number of
New Yorkers who may be making long
trips, highways still will likely be congested,
Sinclair said.
“There will be a lot of people traveling
less than 50 miles,” Sinclair said.
With some wet weather and possibly
snow in the forecast, caution is prudent, he
said.
Sinclair said the AAA recommends that
people check to see their tires are inflated
properly, battery terminals are clean
and windshield wipers are working properly.
The National Weather Service in Binghamton
is forecasting potentially sloppy
weather for Friday and Saturday.
But meteorologist Brian Lovejoy said
snow accumulation, if there is any, will be
limited to higher elevations.
“Friday night there is a possibility of
some wet snow. It’s not a major storm or
anything like that,” Lovejoy said. “After
that, there are no real travel considerations.”
The Oneonta forecast for Thanksgiving
Day, as of Tuesday night, is calling for
partly sunny skies and a high temperature
of 52.
There is a 70 percent chance of rain or
snow for Oneonta on Black Friday, with a
high temperature of 42 degrees, according
to the National Weather Service.
