Tim Nelson
Today is the busiest travel day of the year, and Minnesotans will be taking to the skies and hitting the road without any major complications this holiday weekend.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation is listing only a few road construction projects around the state -- the most significant being the large and ongoing reconstruction of the Crosstown interchange and Interstate 35W south of downtown.
MnDOT spokesman Kevin Gutknecht says the roads are ready for holiday travel.
"By and large, it should be pretty good travel in terms of road construction. We finished a big project on 169 down in St. Peter, for instance," Gutknecht said. "Up in St. Cloud, we finished and opened a bridge for highway 23, the Granite City Crossing that bridge right near downtown. So I would say right now, it looks pretty good."
MnDOT has road conditions available on its website. It also has Twin Cities traffic updates available on Twitter.
Jennifer Brownlee, a spokeswoman for AAA in Minneapolis, said surveys by her organization indicate most travelers will be driving this holiday weekend.
"The majority of those traveling are going by automobile, approximately 86 percent are traveling by car, but there are lower rates on lodging and airfare this year, compared to last year, and a lot of people are taking advantage of that," she said.
AAA says it expects travel nationwide to be up about 1 and a half percent over last year.