On Monday, we talked about some of the things to do to get your car ready for traveling this Thanksgiving. A lot of people will be flying as well, and that means a wholly different set of issues. One of the airline industry groups is estimating that the number of people flying over the Thanksgiving holiday will be 4 percent higher than last year. The solution, as always, is to get to the airport two or three hours early so you can stand in security lines and still make your flight.

You think the lines at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport are as long as its name? We’ve got it easy compared with travelers in some other cities.

The worst are found at Denver International Airport, where at one point last December, the wait for the security checkpoint was two and a half hours. That airport regularly sees wait times in excess of 45 minutes because of the volume of travelers. New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was second-worst for wait times, according to federal reports cited in the Rocky Mountain News.

One of the other things to consider is the amount of time that you spend looking for a parking space in one of the longer-term lots. Circling through the aisles can take a lot of time. There is a potential solution for the parking issue, and that is to use one of the parking lots that are operated by private companies just off the airport grounds. Many of them allow you to reserve a space in advance for a relatively small deposit. They then shuttle you and your luggage to the terminal. But these are becoming more popular, and spaces are not always available when you want to leave.

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As of Tuesday, one of the lots, the PreFlight Parking Lot, was already sold out for parking from Nov. 21 to Nov. 25. That lot is about a mile from the terminal, but there are others that are within five minutes or so. Each offers shuttle service, luggage assistance and reasonable fees. Check out their Web site at www.airportparkingreservations.com.

Now if somebody can just figure out a way to reserve a space in the security checkpoint lines, we’ll all be happy.

REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION STUDY

The Baltimore Metropolitan Council, on behalf of the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board, is conducting a regional transportation study. This survey is being sent to 4,500 area residents who have been randomly selected to participate. If you get one of these surveys, I would strongly encourage you to take the time and be involved. The results of this study and others will determine where the state and regional entities put their money for future projects.

The major interest of this study is to determine where you live, where you work and how you get between the two on a daily basis. It is looking for what you do now and not what you would do if you could have, for example, a train that stopped at the street corner a few steps from your house. It will also capture information on the side trips you make during the day that are not work-related. It has been shown that these shorter trips actually make up a larger part of the congestion on our roads than previously thought.