The tollbooth demolition and road reconstruction project on the Massachusetts Turnpike may affect travel plans for some of the nearly 1 million Bay Staters expected to hit the roads this Thanksgiving holiday. As local highways swell, road work will continue through lunchtime Wednesday.

Many travelers start their holiday journey earlier in the week and the east-west toll road is a major transportation corridor.

"Phase 2" of the tollbooth project, now underway at all 23 toll locations statewide, includes road reconstruction and drainage work, MassDOT spokesman Patrick Marvin told the News Service. MassDOT will shut down most construction at 12 p.m. Wednesday and plans to resume a normal schedule the following Monday, Marvin said.

On a "case by case situation," some work will continue past Wednesday in locations "where it is determined work will not impact traffic," he said.

Ongoing construction is "all the more reason for people to plan well in advance," said AAA Northeast spokeswoman Mary Maguire.

Following the late-October switch to all-electronic tolling, all tollbooth structures are now "by and large removed," said Marvin. That first phase of the project began Oct. 28 and highway chief Thomas Tinlin at its outset likened its impacts to those associated with a snowstorm. Phase 1 was finished last week, beating a target date of Tuesday, Nov. 22, and Tinlin previously said he expected road speeds to tick up and congestion to be reduced after Phase 1.

AAA Northeast on Tuesday projected close to 950,000 Massachusetts residents will hop in the car to travel 50 or more miles next week - a 5.1 percent increase over 2015. The auto club annually projects travelers for the Wednesday to Sunday period of Thanksgiving week.

Nationally, AAA expects to see 48.7 million Thanksgiving travelers journey 50 or more miles from home. That would be the most long-distance Thanksgiving travelers since 2007, when 50.6 million Americans traveled for T-Day. Holiday travel fell sharply - down to 37.8 million - after stocks fell in 2008.

AAA projections are based on economic forecasting and research by a London-based financial services company, according to the nonprofit.

The uptick in auto travel is partly thanks to gas prices "holding steady throughout the Fall months," according to Maguire.

While Massachusetts gas prices this November might not drop to last year's rate - $2.08 per gallon - regular unleaded in Massachusetts was five cents below the national average on Monday, when a report from AAA pegged the state average at $2.12 per gallon.

Some states are experiencing higher prices at the pump because of regional problems like Hurricane Matthew damage further down the coast or the Colonial Pipeline explosion in Alabama, Maguire said.