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Friday, November 24, 2023

Should Draw Bridge Always Favor Schooners? Nov. 24, 1923

Draw Bridge Bad on Auto Traffic. . . And 20 Minutes Seems a Bit Long to Wait on Schooner Loaded Only with a Chicken Coop

A pair of Bestcitlians drove up on the Pasquotank River State Bridge the other day from the Camden side in a hurry to get back home. The draw was up and with one car ahead of them they stopped their flivver on the bridge to wait for the draw to descend.

When the vessel that had the draw had been lifted for had passed and the draw was coming down and within six inches of the closed position, somebody on the schooner lying at Abbot’s wharf with a tin horn gave a signal for the draw to be raised. The vessel was not under way, but the draw rose again into the air. It went up, as its custom is, to the full height, and stopped. Still the schooner had not got under way.

The draw hung in the air for perhaps five minutes and then started downward again. When the bridge was about two-thirds of the way down the schooner cast off from the dock and sounded her warning signal again. By this time a half dozen cars or other motor vehicles were waiting to cross the bridge. The draw continued all the way down this time and two cars from the Pasquotank side who had the right of way shot across. The two cars that were in front of the procession were next and they started across, but the signal to stop halted them so suddenly that the rear car bumped the b ack fenders of the flivver in front of it, and the draw started up again. Meantime the schooner had shut off its auxiliary engine, under the power of which it had been creeping up the river, and was drifting. As the draw lifted the second time the schooner started up again and this time got safely by. Then the draw descended, and the long line of motor vehicles that had formed waiting for the draw to close crossed over. A count showed nearly 20 of them. Then consulting one’s watch disclosed that the two cars that waited the longest to get across had been delayed 20 minutes.

Suppose they had been making a train, with 15 minute margin, which, ordinarily, would be ample.

The schooner had a crew of two and the only visible cargo was a chicken coop.

A power lift for the draw across the Pasquotank River here has been a recognized need ever since the bride was taken over by the State and toll for crossing t was abolished.

A question occurring to the two Bestcitians who had waited 20 minutes for the crossing was whether modern motor traffic on paved highways does not require some modification of the rule for giving precedence to water traffic.

From the front page of The Daily Advance, Elizabeth City, N.C., Nov. 24, 1923

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