After causing a beach traffic logjam ahead of Independence Day, a sinkhole on the Isle of Wight Bay Bridge is expected to be permanently fixed after the holiday weekend.

Emergency repairs to the abutment of the Ocean City Expressway bridge were completed at 1 a.m. Thursday morning after a sinkhole on westbound Route 90 caused one-way traffic for about six hours on the evening of a peak summer travel day. State highway officials said Friday that they are expecting permanent repairs to the bridge to be done “in a few days” to avoid causing more beach traffic than there already will be. The actual date of the repairs, and how much it will cost, is still to be determined.

Traffic should be moving at a standard slow pace this weekend over the Route 90 bridge, which is regularly congested during busy summer travel days as one of three main roads in and out of Ocean City. Motorists looking to avoid that bridge regardless of its status can go through the also congested U.S. Route 50 bridge connected to the Ocean City Inlet or Delaware Route 54, which leads into Fenwick Island just north of Ocean City.

According to National Bridge Inventory data, traffic on the Route 90 bridge, rated as having a deck in “satisfactory” condition during its last inspection in 2022, has carried an average of over 18,000 daily drivers for more than a decade. Though it carries fewer vehicles than the US-50 bridge’s average daily traffic, which shot up to nearly 34,000 average daily trips in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, officials have been planning improvements to the bridge connecting Ocean Pines to North Ocean City.

Toward the end of his term, former Gov. Larry Hogan announced millions of dollars in state funding would be allocated to projects aiming to relieve congestion on both the Route 90 bridge and on the greater Bay Bridge corridor on the Eastern Shore. That project is still in the preliminary study phase and will be for at least two more years, according to the State Highway Administration website. The project would eventually add additional lanes to the two-lane bridge, though officials are still deciding how many more lanes to add.