Confederation Bridge traffic steady Monday as Islanders hurry to beat closing bubble

Traffic on the Confederation Bridge was steady but not record-breaking Monday night as Islanders hurried home following the announcement that P.E.I. would be leaving the Atlantic bubble for at least two weeks. 

"We immediately saw at midnight that a couple of cars were turned around already," Michel LeChasseur, the bridge general manager, told Island Morning's Mitch Cormier. 

"P.E.I. was applying the rules to the letter."

The announcement that the province would be opting out of the bubble, at least temporarily, came during an unscheduled COVID-19 briefing just 13 hours prior to the new rule taking effect.

Meaning, people had little time to get back into the province before 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. 

'More a weather issue'

But for those scrambling to return home, Premier Dennis King said that he would allow for some flexibility.

"The restrictions were put into place at 4:30 this morning," said LeChasseur. 

However, according to LeChasseur, on Monday night the main concern was not the influx of vehicles. 

"Overnight was more a weather issue than a traffic issue," he said. 

"The winds are howling."

'Commercial traffic has been resilient'

LeChasseur said he expects car traffic on the bridge will dwindle to what it was in the winter — which was about 10 per cent of the traffic the bridge would regularly have. 

As for commercial trucks, LeChasseur said this November saw more commercial activity than last November.

"We don't expect that to change much because of these new rules," he said. 

"Commercial traffic has been resilient throughout the pandemic."

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