Michigan transportation officials have scheduled a public hearing this week for input on improving the Mackinac Bridge Labor day walk.
The Mackinac Bridge Authority said closing the bridge to traffic for the annual walk this year was a good move, but brought its own set of problems. Now they’re looking to improve the process. Suggestions include changing the start and/ or finish locations or even changing the date to something other than labor day.
Bob Sweeney is the Executive Secretary for the bridge Authority. He said all proposals should address the two main problems they encountered this year.
“One of the issues that we did have because we closed the bridge no walkers could start after ten-thirty. We left a lot of people that were waiting in line for a bus and they couldn't walk the bridge even though they traveled to the straits area to walk and participate in the bridge”.
The other problem Sweeney said, is the bridge was not able to re-open on time.
“We wanted to open the bridge back up for traffic right at noon, and we did advertise that. We allowed walkers to start the walk up until ten-thirty. We found that a lot of people were still on the bridge within about fifteen minutes of opening the bridge and we we not able to get all those walkers off the bridge in order to open it up right at twelve”.
The bridge authority is seeking public comment on the proposals Wednesday. They hope to have a final decision on Thursday.
The public hearing is scheduled at 5pm at the Mackinaw City Recreation Complex.
On the web:
MBA Proposals in entirety:
http://www.mackinacbridge.org/mba-staff-proposals-2018-annual-bridge-walk/
