Congestion hitting Wilmington hard as work on westbound lanes of Cape Fear Memorial Bridge starts

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Tuesday marked the first day of work being done on the westbound lanes of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and drivers are feeling the impact.

Those lane closures are causing congestion along 3rd Street heading towards the Isabel Holmes Bridge.

Trevor Carroll is a division maintenance engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

He said some intersections along 3rd Street will see changes to signal timing to try and ease the congestion.

“We haven’t seen anything that was unexpected today,” Carroll said. “Travelers will experience a little more wait time when you’re coming from those side streets towards 3rd or other major arteries, major travel routes. We’re going to try to extend those green times on the major travel routes so that the majority of the traffic can flow smoother.”

Despite the increase in traffic moving along 3rd Street, Boombalati’s manager Annalise Vanderveen said she doesn’t expect to see a major increase in customers coming in.

“I’m not sure if it will have an increase in people,” Vanderveen said. “It might affect foot traffic a bit because people are maybe more likely to leave like the busy part of downtown and come to the less busy part of downtown. So maybe we’ll see more foot traffic but I’m not sure about actual traffic.”

Work on the westbound lanes is expected to be completed by May 23rd.

The contractor working on the project will get a $500,000 incentive if they complete the work before that deadline.