Houston ? As tens of millions tank up and hit the road for Memorial Day weekend, gas prices are rising fast enough to revive painful memories of the $4-a-gallon summer of 2008.

Rest easy: The economic slack created by the recession all but guarantees prices won’t spike the way they did last year, analysts say.

On Thursday, a gallon of unleaded averaged $2.36. That’s much cheaper than the $3.80 it cost this time last year, but prices are still up about 30 cents a gallon this month, enough to make drivers flinch.

Even so, the auto club AAA estimates 32.4 million people, or about one in 10 Americans, will travel over the holiday, most of them driving. That’s a slight 1.5 percent increase from 2008.

Vacations make a lot more sense for many families than they did last year. Airfares, hotels and tourist attractions are all cheaper this year because of the relentless recession.