I don't know if it's good luck or really, really bad luck to be the first car that has to stop and wait for the drawbridge. Allow me a small rant.

In my town lovely town of Point Pleasant Beach, that dang bridge seems to go up at least twice an hour in-season...backing up traffic in both directions for miles. Which is insane to me with all of the tourists coming off the parkway.

With so much time on my hands, and having been caught at that light numerous times, I plan on taking out my stopwatch to time it exactly, but it takes somewhere around 9 minutes from the time the light turns red until the bridge goes back down, the gates get rolled back, and the light turns green again.

I try to stay pretty relaxed about it.That is, when I'm not already late getting where I need to go. I put the car in park, roll down the windows, and look at the boats in the water. I'd rather be first than stuck down on Broadway waiting for the train and then the kazillion cars that have already been waiting on Rt. 35 to get back over that bridge to Brielle. No one wants to let you merge.

It's even worse if you are heading into Point Beach. Not only does NO ONE want to let the cars coming from Brielle merge onto Rt. 35 to get over the bridge, but then everyone wants to speed up to get to the top of the bridge, only to have to slam on their brakes when they realize there is a red light at the bottom, the speed limit goes from 50 down to 35, and nine times out of ten there is a cop sitting right there waiting for you.

Fun times.

What do you do when you're stuck at the bridge?

 

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