Tired Of Being Stuck By The Bridge?

If you’ve sat in a backup caused by the bridge being up during the afternoon rush, you may be happy to hear about this.

Houghton Police Chief John Donnelly said he takes part in a meeting about the Portage Lake Lift Bridge once a month and he intends to see what can be done about lifts for marine craft during the afternoon peak traffic time.

Donnelly said it can take over an hour for traffic to clear if there is a raising of the bridge between 4:30 and 6:00pm on weekdays.

This can cause problems when emergency vehicles need to get through town or across the bridge, especially with both hospitals in Houghton County north of the canal.

Boat traffic currently has the absolute right of way over vehicle traffic.

It may take an act of Congress to make the change so that marine traffic would have to wait until after 6pm for the bridge to go up.

Donnelly said they will try and keep track of the number of emergency calls the department receives that are impacted by the traffic backup.