Road Warrior: 11-23

11/23/2009

The Blade's Road Warrior advises readers each Monday where the biggest driving headaches will be throughout the construction season. He'll tell you the locations to avoid and the detours to take.

Major work on Toledo-area freeways has come to a close for the season, most notably on I-75 near the Maumee River, where the DiSalle Bridge project halted for the winter last week.

A few minor maintenance projects continue during offpeak hours, and those will be scheduled so as to avoid conflicts with Thanksgiving holiday travel later this week.

AAA expects 38.4 million Americans to travel more than 50 miles from home during the long weekend, a 1.4 percent increase over last year.

An ever-greater percentage of Thanksgiving travelers is driving rather than fl ying, which the auto club attributes to reduced airline capacity, stricter security proceedings, and ever-growing surcharges and fees. Eighty-six percent are now expected to make their entire holiday trip by highway, whereas just 6 percent will fly.

AAA says the rest will go by bus, train, or water, or a combination of modes. A recent increase in fuel prices is not expected to infl uence how most people travel, because late-purchase airline tickets are usually expensive.

With construction projects generally fi nished, or close to finished for the season, this will be the last Road Warrior column of the year. I'll be back in the spring when the orange barrels start sprouting up again.