Memorial Day Weekend in the Hamptons: More Cars than People?

You are driving to where you always go and then you see the red brake lights of the car in front on you, you slow down, then you crawl. You know you are quite a distance from the intersection, so you wonder is it road work? is it an accident? then you realize, it's Memorial Day and thus the Summer Season of 2018.

It seems to me their are more cars than people. I park in any of the towns, usually struggling to find parking and then when I walk through the towns, boom, the shops are empty other than the zombies at the coffee shops staring at devices with a coffee next to them waiting for their next message. Yet the parade of cars is never ending.

The idea of folks just driving around yet really going anywhere is frightening. I love this 2005 Memorial Day Weekend story that happened to me when I lived on DeForrest Road in Ditch Plains, Montauk. Whether going to work in Bridgehampton, or my sailboat in East Hampton or just to the village to get eggs, milk etc. getting to Montauk village and beyond was free and easy. Now I had moved into Montauk in October and was used to empty roads, with lots of parking everywhere. The Ditch Plains Beach parking lots had a sprinkle of cars mostly surfers and dog walkers. Then one late Saturday seeing I was out of milk for my coffee I jumped into my car, pulled out and KAZOOM there were what seemed like thousands of people and cars trying to get into the Ditch Plain Beach Parking lot. I sit in my car unable to proceed for almost 20 minutes. Then I go to the IGA in town but there is nowhere to park. Yes it was Memorial Day weekend. LOL and this was pre-Surf Lodge Montauk.

Friends are telling me now-a-days it is unusual because intersections that were never clogged up are now jammed. Yet home rentals are down, rented homes slower than other years and no-one quite knows where all the cars are coming from. A Montauk vendor friend of mine said there is a new generation of day trip sight seeing visitor. He explained, "They just drive around, go to a Seven-Eleven, and then go back to where they came, somewhere up island."

I wonder how this will play out for the rest of the summer? You can't get there, but no one is there when you do get there. I would love to see figures of how many more cars are registered in East Hampton Town than 10 years ago? I drive by homes that have 8-9 cars all over their driveways in the Springs on the way to my boat. Not to many folks on bikes anymore, everybody is in their car.