Far from cities with stoplights as far as the eye can see, the Chilkat Valley will temporarily know what it feels like to sit and patiently await the light turning green.

Since June 22, traffic on Wells Bridge over the Chilkat River has been restricted to one direction, with a stoplight outside of working hours. 

Liz Segars, senior project engineer for Colaska, said that drivers should “treat it as a normal stoplight.” 

If drivers approach the red light, they should wait for the light to turn green before moving through the signal. It can take up to 180 seconds because, she said, the light is operated via a timer cycle. 

Segars said the company based the timing off the slowest vehicle, a bicyclist. If a car passes on a yellow light, it will have 90 seconds to clear the length of the bridge and make it to the other side before the light on the other side turns green, according to Segars.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, starting Friday, July 3 and ending Tuesday, July 7, the bridge will return to two lanes of traffic. On July 7, the bridge will go back to being a one-lane road and the stoplight will be reinstalled and remain up until Labor Day weekend.

Working hours on the highway are from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., during which pilot cars shuttle traffic through the bridge’s one-way road.

“It can feel like a really long time, but they are computerized,” Segars said about the stoplights on either side of the bridge. If a fault is detected, then the lights will flash red.