Route 50 on a Summer Friday

The road to the ocean beaches crosses the Bay Bridge and then runs more than a hundred miles of farm country. On a July Friday it can take the better part of a day.

Anyone who has spent a summer on the Delmarva Peninsula knows the Friday line. It starts on the western shore, well before the toll plaza, and it can still be crawling past the outlet stores on Kent Island an hour later. Beach traffic is the peninsula's July weather. Everyone talks about it, everyone plans around it, and it still catches people out.

The drive itself is simple. Cross the bridge, follow Route 50 southeast through the middle of the Eastern Shore, and keep going until the land runs out at the Atlantic. What makes it hard is everyone else doing the same thing at the same hour, tired, hot and in a hurry.

Why the bridge sets the pace

Every car bound for the Maryland and Delaware beaches from Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington has to cross the Chesapeake somewhere, and for most of them that means the Bay Bridge. The twin spans run a little over four miles across open water. There is almost no shoulder, no exit halfway across, and a long climb to the high point over the shipping channel. One stalled car on the span backs traffic up for miles, because there is nowhere for anyone to go.

The state posts live travel times, lane closures and any two-way operations on the Bay Bridge site. On a busy weekend one lane of the westbound span is sometimes given over to eastbound cars, which puts oncoming traffic a few feet away with only a line of cones in between. That is a good stretch to keep both hands on the wheel, the speed steady and the radio low.

People who are nervous about heights or water often find the bridge harder than they expected. If that is you, the outside lane is not the place to discover it. Ride in the passenger seat if someone else can drive, and look at the car ahead rather than the drop.

The long middle

Once across Kent Island, Route 50 settles into a divided highway that runs past Easton, over the long bridge across the Choptank at Cambridge, and on through the marsh country of Dorchester County toward Salisbury. The land is flat and wide open. Corn and soybeans run to the tree line, low poultry houses sit back from the road in rows, and the sky takes up most of the windshield.

It is easy to relax here, and that is part of the problem. The speed limit is high, the road is straight, and the traffic thins out just enough to tempt people into weaving. Then it bunches again at the next town, where the lights and the turn lanes come back without much warning.

Median crossovers and farm lanes

The feature that surprises visitors most is the crossover. Long sections of Route 50 on the Shore have no interchanges at all. A side road or a farm lane simply meets the highway, and a gap in the grass median lets local drivers cross both directions of traffic. Someone waiting in that gap is trying to judge cars closing at highway speed from two sides at once.

• Watch the median ahead, as well as the road. A car nosing out of a crossover is easier to spot early.
• Leave room on the right for trucks and pickups pulling out of farm entrances and gas stations.
• Expect slow vehicles in the right lane, from tractors to loaded grain trucks, especially early and late in the season.
• Do not pass a car that is slowing for no clear reason. It is often about to turn.

Leaving at the right hour

The single biggest choice is the clock. Locals and regular visitors tend to settle on a few habits, and they hold up year after year.

1. Cross the bridge early on Friday, before the commuter rush joins the beach traffic, or wait until well into the evening.
2. If the schedule allows, make the trip on a Saturday at dawn. The road is close to empty.
3. Head home on Sunday morning or Monday rather than Sunday afternoon, when the westbound line can stretch back across the Shore.
4. Check the posted travel times before leaving, and again before the last town ahead of the bridge.

What to keep in the car

A long slow drive goes better with a little preparation. Fill the tank before the bridge so a low fuel light is not part of a standstill on the span. Keep water and something to eat within reach, along with a phone charger. Pack sunglasses for the trip home as well, because heading west late in the day puts the sun straight into the windshield for the last hour, right when everyone is tired.

The last stretch

Past Salisbury the road runs flat and fast through Berlin toward the coast, and then everything slows down again at the drawbridge into Ocean City. By then most drivers have been in the car for hours. This is where patience matters most. People cross the road carrying chairs and coolers, children dart toward the sand, and drivers circling for parking stop without warning. Park once, walk, and leave the car alone until it is time to go home.