BANGOR – With the Black Friday – arguably the biggest shopping day of the year – bearing down on Bangor, local officials are offering some tips to help motorists avoid traffic congestion.

Road construction on Interstate 95 and Stillwater Avenue has wrapped up just in time to ease traffic congestion around the Bangor Mall, but the area still is expected to be busier than usual with shoppers from Bangor and beyond flocking here to take advantage of pre-holiday deals.

As City Engineer Jim Ring sees it, the wild card as far as holiday shopping goes will be how many Canadians turn out. On Wednesday, their dollar was worth about a penny more than the U.S. currency, and gas and merchandise prices here were still significantly less.

In recent weeks, the parking lots of shopping malls, hotels and other businesses in Greater Bangor have been filled with vehicles sporting license plates from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and other Canadian provinces.

Given the anticipated increase in traffic, especially in the Bangor Mall area, Ring this week offered the following simple advice:

“Avoid left turns, think about where you’re going and plan your route” to minimize time in traffic, he said.

The reason Ring recommends avoiding left turns, when practical, is that left turns mean having to cross two lanes of traffic. Having to do so is even more aggravating when trying to maneuver in places without traffic lights, including parking lots along Stillwater Avenue.

“Really, it does make things a lot easier,” Ring said. “I know as one who doesn’t like to sit in traffic and who doesn’t like to spend a whole lot of time shopping.”

Ring also noted that traffic signals, which had been set to accommodate motorists who were using city streets to avoid construction on Interstate 95, have been reset to their normal, shorter cycles.

That should help cut down the amount of time drivers spend waiting for green lights, he said.

BAT Community Connector Superintendent Joe McNeil also suggested people use public transportation.

In Bangor, public bus ridership continues to increase. The bus system now serves an average of 2,500 riders a day, or about 800,000 a year, he said. Ridership could rise even more if fuel prices keeping climbing.

“It doesn’t look good,” McNeil said of gas costs.

Given the increasing use, McNeil cautioned riders to be patient when it comes to schedules. Buses might run a bit late and might also get caught in the gridlock.

“We can’t go any faster than the car ahead of us,” he said.

McNeil said that Black Friday this year coincides with Free Fare Fridays, one of Gov. John Baldacci’s responses to rising gasoline prices.

For six consecutive Fridays, beginning this week, bus fares across the state will be waived as a way to help Mainers cut down on gasoline consumption.

Baldacci hopes that Free Fare Fridays will show more Mainers the benefits of mass transit and expose them to a cheaper and easier way to get around during the rest of the week.

The governor will kick the program off at about 10 a.m. Friday by riding a BAT bus from its hub at Pickering Square to Broadway. City officials are expected to ride along with him.

Besides the BAT, which serves several communities in Greater Bangor, the state’s free Friday fare program involves Aroostook Regional Transport, Bath Bus, Biddeford-Saco-Old Old Orchard ShuttleBus, Coastal Trans, Downeast Transportation, KVCAP, Lewiston-Auburn CitiLink, The Lynx, Portland METRO, RTP, Sanford Transit’s “My Bus,” South Portland Bus Service, Waldo County CAP, Western Maine Transportation Services and West’s Bus Service.