After a fun filled weekend, you may run into some travel delays if your journey includes the Mackinac Bridge.
Increased traffic on the bridge is not unusual this time of the year, but they are seeing even more traffic than normal.
9&10’s Aaron Parseghian explains the reason for the spike in the days after July 4th.
“We know it’s going to be a busy travel day, it will be definitely in our top 10 this year,” said Mackinac Bridge Authority CEO Bob Sweeney.
July 5th is one of the busiest travel days in the entire year.
“It’s bumper to bumper trying to get around from one end of town to another, there’s no traffic lights so it’s kind of a pain in the butt,” said St. Ignace Resident Heidi Ross.
The Mackinac Bridge Authority is projecting record traffic.
“Traffic has been projecting higher this year. We projected we were going to be up another 3%,” explained Sweeney.
The reason, July 4th falling on a Tuesday. It’s causing a spike in traffic that will likely extend through the week.
“Interestingly enough we have more northbound traffic on Wednesday July 5th than we do southbound, so there’s still more people coming up on vacation,” said Sweeney.
The bridge says they are prepared to open up all travel lanes if need be.
“We are getting some backups, but we’re staffed for them. There’s crews out there doing repair work and some painting work as well, but when our traffic volumes get up to a certain point, we may lose those lane closures,” added Sweeney.
Delayed travel on both sides of the bridge, doesn’t have visitors discouraged.
I think it will get slow when we try to cross the bridge. It’s awfully fun coming from the Lower Peninsula up here, once you cross the bridge you know you are in special country, right?” said Kevin Champion, who was traveling with his family.
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