Ocean City Expressway reopened to traffic early Thursday following sinkhole repairs

Dillon Mullan, Mary Carole McCauley, Baltimore Sun
Updated ·1 min read
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The Ocean City Expressway reopened early Thursday after holiday weekend gridlock in Ocean City got off to a rough start.

The Expressway (MD Route 90) was open to only limited traffic beginning at 7 p.m. Wednesday after a sinkhole was discovered near the base of the Wight Bay Bridge. But by 1 a.m. Thursday, temporary repairs had been made and the road was reopened.

“No roads are closed and traffic is flowing smoothly,” Laila Jones, a communications officer for the Maryland State Highway Administration said Thursday morning.

For the six hours it took to make temporary repairs, the road connecting Ocean Pines on the mainland of Worcester County to Ocean City was limited to one-way, alternating flagging operations. In addition, motorists were urged to use Route 50 and Delaware Route 54 as alternative access roads.

Jones said that crews first poured riprap rock into the sinkhole to stabilize it, covered the damaged roadway with a metal plate, and secured the edges of the plate with cement.

“We’re going to do a permanent repair later this week when the beach traffic has slowed down,” she said. “We don’t want to disrupt holiday traffic.”