Sarnia's mayor has penned a letter to the province, urging immediate action to alleviate ongoing traffic congestion approaching the Blue Water Bridge (BWB).
Mike Bradley is telling Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria the almost daily backups along Highway 402 westbound are posing serious concerns in Sarnia and Point Edward.
Some days, commercial vehicles are waiting over two hours to cross into Michigan.
"For the last couple of weeks, I've been receiving concerns from the Duty Free Store and others in the community saying we can't even get around our own community on the 402 trying to get in and out of the city," said Bradley. "Sunday was particularly bad as Highway 402 was backed up past Modeland Road. If you were on there as a trucker or as a car, you were stuck there and there were all sorts of people trying to get around that."
On Sunday, the westbound Highway 402 was down to one lane between Modeland Road and Indian Road due to construction, but there was no work happening over the weekend.
Bradley said it's causing Sarnia's streets to become crowded with truck traffic, which is dangerous.
He said vehicles were observed turning around on the highway, using signed rights-of-way and gravel shoulders along the 402 which compromises emergency access.
"I applaud the Sarnia Police Service for taking steps to try and deal with that," he said. "What we need now is the province to put a better plan in place to deal with these back ups."
Bradley said it's up to the province to show some leadership.
"They have been receiving concerns from citizens here, over the last number of weeks, but we've seen no action moving forward from the province or the federal government," said Bradley. "Sunday was a really vivid example with massive tie ups and traffic all over the place. It didn't appear that there was any great enforcement going on along the 402 by the OPP or the MTO."
Bradley said the delays are ironic because bridge traffic is actually down heading toward the U.S.
"Streets like Exmouth Street and Michigan Avenue, they're not built for truck traffic," he said.
Bradley hopes to see a response within a week, especially in advance of the August long weekend.