This just in: The Maine Turnpike is crawling with small lobsters.

Well, sort of.

Plates bearing Maine’s trademark lobster are gradually becoming a larger and larger proportion of turnpike traffic, and that may be good news for us all.

In 1994, Massachusetts drivers were 9 percent of turnpike traffic. They were 6 percent in surveys conducted in 2004. New Hampshire drivers were 7 percent in 1994, but just 6 percent 10 years later. Mainers, meanwhile, have gone from 78 percent of traffic in 1994 to 82 percent today.

Dan Paradee, the turnpike authority spokesman, says that adding more exits adds to the Maine traffic. This year, new exits opened in our area, Exit 86 in Sabattus, and in Portland.

Drivers, Paradee theorizes, find it more convenient to hop on the turnpike for short trips within the same area. For example, local drivers headed for a destination in the southern end of Auburn can now hop on the turnpike at either Lewiston or Sabattus and avoid adding to the congestion in downtown Lewiston and Auburn.

Turnpike traffic headed to Sabattus and nearby communities can now exit there rather than the Lewiston exit, easing the traffic flow across Lewiston and cutting travel time.

While we hope that’s the case, we suspect the figures represent a two-edged sword. One could just as easily speculate that more Lewiston-Auburn residents may be taking the turnpike to shopping destinations in Augusta and South Portland.

We prefer Paradee’s explanation.