It’s jammed with vehicles on most summer weekends, but thousands of walkers, not cars, backed up traffic on U.S. Route 50 at the Bay Bridge for miles in either direction Sunday for a chance to view the Chesapeake Bay.
Hazel Fox, of Cape St. Claire, has walked the bridge at least half a dozen times. This was the first bridge walk for her 5-year-old daughter, Meagan.
“I love the Bay, and I could use the exercise,” Fox said. “And it gives me chance to get out of the house.”
The annual Bay Bridge Walk, a Maryland tradition for more than 30 years, returned this year after roadwork canceled it in 2005. Security concerns and bad weather have also done in the 4.3-mile trek in recent years.
For Veda Halvey, of Hampton, Va., the walk was a chance to see the bridge up close, having driven over it many times. “I just go fascinated by the bridge,” she said. “And maybe it’s the challenge [of walking across it] that brings people out.”
Tourists and locals alike paused along the way to snap pictures beneath the suspension bridge towers, and motorists creeping along on the westbound span waved and honked their horns. The bridge’s eastbound span was not scheduled to reopen to traffic until Sunday evening.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich started the walk and greeted some participants at the starting line on the Eastern shore. Around lunchtime, walkers were treated to a glimpse of the restart of the Volvo Ocean Race.
The boats, docked in Annapolis since Thursday night, were scheduled to round a buoy just south of the bridge before heading for New York City.
For first-time bridge walker Bob Cardwell, of Jarrettsville, Md., Sunday’s trip across the span, which averages about two hours, was just another way to experience the bridge.
“I’ve sailed my boat under it, flown a plane over it, rode my motorcycle over it,” Cardwell said. “So I decided now it was time to walk over it.”
