AUGUSTA, Maine - If you've driven the Maine Turnpike this summer, you've probably run into your fair share of bottlenecks and slow-moving traffic. There are a lot more cars and trucks on the highway compared to a year ago, according to recent data from the Maine Turnpike Authority. Steady growth in traffic and toll revenue coincide with promising early numbers on the 2015 tourist season and an overall uptick in Maine's and the nation's economy.
Traffic on the Maine Turnpike began to tick up gradually last September. It's Doug Davidson's job to analyze traffic trends on the highway and look at those patterns in the context of the broader forces driving the economy. Davidson is the turnpike authority's chief financial officer and treasurer. "So what I really think is we're seeing most of the recession traffic coming back," he says.
In June, according to Turnpike Authority data, car traffic in Maine was up roughly 5.5 percent over a year ago. Davidson says the authority has also seen a surge in the number of drivers paying cash at tollbooths. "Cash payers are the first people to disappear during the recession. And they're usually the first people to reappear when the economy is getting better."
The roadway data also suggest that Maine's tourist season is shaping up to be a strong one. Just try leaving the state on Sunday afternoon says Peter Mills, the Turnpike Authority's executive director. "It's really quite intense on Sunday afternoons," he says. "It has been for years, but it's grown substantially this year."
Over at the Maine Office of Tourism, officials pay close attention to the traffic data that comes out of the Turnpike Authority, "because we know that the preponderance of our visitors do arrive by vehicle," says the head of the office, Carolann Ouellette.
And so far this summer, Ouellette says, many more visitors are coming to Maine - and staying overnight - than made the trek a year ago. Ouellette says lodging sales tax receipts in May 2015 were 14 percent higher than a year earlier. She says restaurant sales tax collection was up nearly 10 percent over the same period.
Ouellette also closely monitors Acadia National Park visits, which in June of 2015 were 5 percent greater than a year earlier. "We're really excited. We're hoping that it will continue into the fall, which often has been the case. Recently, we've seen some really positive increases in fall visitation as well."
At the Turnpike Authority, Peter Mills says it's not just automobiles that are responsible for the traffic increase. Traffic on the turnpike, he notes, is up among all classes of vehicles. "It's not just tourism," Mills says. "What surprises me is that the delivery trucks are back. They're delivering hard goods into the state of Maine."
"There's been a spike in freight movements nationwide, as well as to the state of Maine," says Brian Parke, who runs the Maine Motor Transport Association. Parke says this uptick, noted in data from the American Trucking Association, is creating some challenges for some of his members. "They're having a hard time finding enough truck drivers to move the freight that their customers have asked them to, just from normal economic activity."
But it's not entirely clear whether this uptick in economic activity, and turnpike traffic, will continue. Consumer confidence in the U.S. had been on a steady upswing in recent months. But it fell sharply in July, leading to worries about how the overall economy will do between now and the end of the year.