Mailbag: Police need a Plan B for bridge traffic

The police created pure chaos on Pacific Coast Highway near Dover Drive about 9 a.m. on Labor Day.

They blocked off all southbound traffic on the highway from the bridge over the Back Bay for no obvious reason. I saw no wrecked vehicles or obstructions on the bridge. We discovered in the newspapers the next day that they had found a dead body under the bridge.

So police forced hundreds of cars (including mine) to detour (about seven miles) around the Back Bay and down Jamboree Road to continue the journey south.

It is time that the Newport Beach Police Department came up with a special traffic-control plan for this vital artery on the highway, to keep traffic flowing on this bridge.

There are six lanes on this bridge (three on each side with no center divider), and the plan should include opening some of these lanes in both directions or having police control the flow by allowing some traffic to cross the bridge on a timed basis.

Mark Wakeman

Newport Beach