The are two spans to the bridge, with a total of five lanes.īefore the opening of the Bay Bridge in 1952, the primary means of getting a car across the bay was by ferry, which took about two hours. In order to combat the congestion, bridge officials will open three lanes to eastbound traffic instead of the normal two. More than a quarter million vehicles are expected to cross the bridge in both directions through Sunday, said Teri Moss, spokeswoman for the Maryland Transportation Authority.įrom Thursday to Sunday, crowds of people will be heading to Sunfest 2005 in Ocean City or to the NASCAR races at Dover International Speedway in Delaware. Starting Friday afternoon, though, traffic is expected to be much heavier. The average backup on a normal summer weekend is two to four miles on eastbound Route 50, though on several occasions this summer it has been far more, stretching back to the intersection with Interstate 97 and beyond. That number is projected to increase by 2025 to 86,000.
The current bridge is 4.3 miles long.Ībout 65,000 vehicles cross the Bay Bridge on the average weekday. While there are no hard estimates of how much a new bridge might cost, some estimates place the figure at $600 to $900 million per mile.
#Eastbound bay bridge traffic how to
Lowell Stoltzfus, R- Somerset, co-chair of the Bay Crossing Task Force, which was appointed in January 2005 to assess the capacity of the Bay Bridge and make recommendations on how to cope with the increased congestion expected over the next 30 years. “It looks bad, and it looks like it’s going to get worse,” said Sen. Several solutions, ranging from the construction of another bridge, to building a tunnel beneath the bay or resuming long-abandoned ferry service, have been proposed and debated, but these options are vastly expensive or regarded as impractical. Memorial Bridge on warm weather weekends, or for the legendary backups on approaches to the bridge, which can sometimes stretch more than 10 miles on eastbound route 50. So far, there is little hope for a quick fix for the frequent traffic jams that afflict the William Preston Lane Jr. ANNAPOLIS – As motorists brace for what is expected to be one of the year’s worst weekends for traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, state and local transportation planners continue to search for long term solutions to the worsening traffic conditions.
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