Traffic on the Maine Turnpike is expected to be light over the normally busy Memorial Day weekend as the state’s tourism economy stays closed and out-of-state visitors stay home.

The Maine Turnpike Authority expects traffic to be 30 percent below what it was last year, making it the slowest Memorial Day weekend in 20 years, it said in a statement.

Memorial Day is the unofficial kickoff for Maine’s busy summer tourism season. But with hotels, campgrounds and restaurants closed, and a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine order for out-of-state travelers, it is unlikely to be so this year.

Many turnpike users will be Maine people anxious to get out for day trips over the weekend, the authority predicts.

Traffic on the toll highway was down by over 50 percent in mid-April, the authority said. In the past two weeks, it has recovered to about 70 percent of what it was a year ago.

“The good news is, we are beginning to see traffic come back. We’ve seen incremental increases in weekday traffic already and with a sunny forecast everywhere in Maine this weekend,” Turnpike Authority Executive Director Peter Mills said in a statement, “we suspect there will be more people on the road than we’ve seen since the outbreak began.”

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