PORT HURON, Mich. (WXYZ) — Anne Lage's restaurant, Anne’s Diner, is located a half-mile from the Blue Water Bridge. This week, the area has been experiencing backups stemming from protests in Canada over their vaccine and quarantine mandates.
“Actually, this is normal for us," Lage explained. "We always have backups, but we don’t have backups this bad."
Lage said the differences are the volume of trucks heading to the Blue Water Bridge these days, the length of the backups and the reason for the backups.
“It’ll back up until like the first exit usually, but not until like seven exits (like this week)," she compared.
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“I feel sorry for the people who are (from) out of town and don’t understand that there are other ways to get into Port Huron instead of just 94," said Lage.
Longtime Port Huron Resident Jack Dahl said, “It was a mess (with) people stuck on the inside (lane)."
"If they were all staying on one lane, that wouldn’t have been a problem. You know, but they were parked... stopped on all two lanes.”
Next door to Anne’s Diner is Jet’s Pizza which depends on smooth traffic to make timely deliveries. However, Dylan Dombrowski, a Jet's Pizza delivery driver, says that’s been a challenge this week.
"We would have deliveries probably two hours ago that they called, and we get there and they’re just confused on why took so long," he described.
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Businesses 7 Action News checked within Port Huron’s downtown area report seeing little to no change in foot traffic and revenue one way or the other. However, Lage said she’s concerned truckers unable to make their deliveries, particularly auto parts for the big three, will start to affect her bottom line.
“A lot of ‘em are laying off right now because they can’t get the parts to keep the workers working. So then, therefore, it affects me in the long run because if they’re not getting a paycheck, then they’re not coming out to eat," Lage explained.
Port Huron police told 7 Action News despite some backups on the freeways, and there have been no issues in the city.
