BAY COUNTY – If you thought the current state of Bay City bridges couldn’t get any worse, you were wrong.
The Bay City bridges raise many questions and are a common cause of frustration for drivers. Taxpayers wonder why they can’t expect the city to take care of the bridges, and some drivers ask why they are paying more to cross the Liberty Bridge than the Mackinac Bridge.
Setting aside our frustration with the toll, we need to shift our focus to what happens when the Lafayette bridge is closed for construction. Drivers are already avoiding the toll bridge and feeling the impact.
“[It] takes me like 20 extra minutes out of my way to do stuff,” says Delta College student Billy Opdycke.
Linda Kay, a Bay City resident, says, “The Lafayette bridge, there’s so much traffic at four or five o’clock.” Kay mentioned that the traffic backs up down the road with tons of cars, and that we also have to worry about trains and boats.
These have become common experiences of commuters avoiding toll bridges.
With Independence Bridge being closed for maintenance until April 14, the Collegiate had the perfect opportunity to gather some data.
The Independence Bridge is set to be a future toll bridge, and the Liberty toll bridge is the bridge closest to Independence. This bridge closure provided a glimpse into what traffic would be like when drivers go out of their way to avoid tolls from the two bridges.
On Tuesday, April 4, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., we recorded traffic on the three remaining bridges. We then counted how many cars crossed the bridges during the 9 a.m. rush hour. A total of 2,902 vehicles crossed the bridges. The traffic breakdown was as follows: Liberty toll bridge had 422 (roughly 15%), Lafayette had 417 (roughly 14%), and Veterans Memorial had 2,063 (roughly 71%).
At a March 18 Bay City Commision meeting, Commissioner Christopher Girard gave a brief update on the Lafayette Bridge project. According to Girard, a coordinated meeting with Michigan Department of Traffic representatives clarified the earliest potential date being Aug. 6. The bridge may be closed for up to 30 months (about two and a half years) according to Girard.
Once construction starts, it closes out a more direct route option for many Bay City residents to Delta College. Drivers on the southwest side will lose easy access to businesses like Bay City’s famous A&W Drive-In, which is only open during the summer. Drivers will be limited to one non-toll bridge option.
Let’s keep in mind the three bridges we gathered data from are all within a three-mile span. The data shows that city locals already overwhelmingly choose to use the free Veterans Memorial Bridge. We cannot definitively say this is because of the toll bridge, but our conversations with Bay City locals do give credence to the idea. One thing is certain: Bay City drivers are irritated.
With Lafayette under construction and drivers avoiding the toll, Veterans Bridge will be getting used a lot more over the next few years. If the Lafayette Bridge drivers move to the Veterans Memorial Bridge, according to our data, roughly 86% of river-crossing traffic will be on the Veterans Memorial Bridge.
Bay City commuters will be forced to choose between wasting time on a gridlocked bridge or paying tolls. Both are costly in their own way, and we haven’t even dug into the impact this will have on local business. How are there so many people against this and it is still happening in our city?
If you share our concern for Bay City bridge traffic, there could be a solution. In December of 2023, City Commissioner Shelley Niedzwiecki appeared on WNEM, where it was reported that she was reaching out to Bay City Bridge Partners to suspend tolling until construction was complete. Niedzwiecki is only one person in the Bay City government, so use your voice and speak out about how your tax dollars are being spent. A few people speaking up only sounds like a whisper, but a community creates a wave.
The mayor and other commissioners’ contact info can be found at https://www.baycitymi.org/377/Contact-the-Commissioners.
