PECULIAR, Mo. — Heading to the lake this Fourth of July? The Missouri Department of Transportation is expecting big backups around the holiday on I-49 south of Peculiar.
"You get a lot of traffic going to the lake," said MoDOT's Stephen Collyott. "We see very high volume traffic on this stretch of the road."
The southbound bridge over the Grand River, south of J Hwy, is shut down, so traffic is pushed onto the northbound lanes. With one lane getting through both directions, backups have been several miles long.
"When you have high volume traffic and it is starting to back up, it is safer if people use both lanes because then everybody is going the same speed," he said. "If you take turns and merge at the merge point, everybody will be moving at the same speed. You won't have cars zooming past you and trying to cut people off to get in at that point."
It is called the "Zipper Merge,” and many transportation departments across the U.S. are pushing their drivers to learn it.
"If everyone is trying to get over in one lane, they are not using both, the backup, a lot of times, will be almost twice as long," Collyott said.
Instead of getting over when you see the first construction sign, you drive up to the merge point and then take turns going into the work zone.
"I think people in Missouri have been conditioned to get over and wait," Collyott said. "They are pretty polite people. It'll take time, people will just have to get used to it and once they do they'll find they like it better."
I-49 bridge reconstruction is scheduled through November.
Watch the video below to learn more about the zipper merge.
