Falling Gas Prices Fuel Labor Day Travel

Labor Day travel is expected to increase this year, if only slightly, and some of that end-of-summer wanderlust can be attributed to gas prices that have fallen of late.
That's the assessment of AAA Mid-Atlantic, the nation's fifth largest auto club, which says 452,000 residents in the region will take car trips of 50 miles or more over the holiday weekend.

They will hit the roads a week after gas prices fell 6 cents, bringing the average price for self-serve regular to $2.88 in Maryland, for example. That compares to the $3.09 motorists were enduring one month ago. Last year at this time, the price of a gallon of unleaded regular gas was 22 cents cheaper.
The recent drop in prices at the pump is the biggest two-week decline since last September, when refineries in the Gulf of Mexico came back online in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, some oil industry anaysts say.

"The recent drop in local gasoline prices is encouraging news to motorists and all consumers alike, who have been pinched all summer long by the second highest gasoline prices in history," AAA Mid-Atlantic's John B. Townsend II said in a statement.

With gas prices traditionally dropping after Labor Day, further relief could be on the way, AAA said.