For the second straight year, it was rough sledding on Highway 16 to Tacoma on Thanksgiving evening. The Department of Transportation knew it would be. They figured about 65 to 70 percent of travelers would be paying manually at the toll booths. That’s the opposite of a normal day.
All six booths were staffed, but traffic still backed past Gig Harbor, past the cemetery, past the women’s prison to Burnham Drive, said tolls spokeswoman Janet Matkin. That’s the farthest since the new bridge opened in July 2007.
Matkin said the wait at its worse was 40 minutes. The State Patrol opened the HOV lane to single-person vehicles, as long as they had a Good To Go sticker.
Last year Thanksgiving was also the worse day of the year, Matkin said.
