If you were one of the hundreds of drivers stuck in a major traffic jam at the busiest intersection of US 501 Friday morning, you weren't alone.
"It's insane,” said Joe Chocuzza, who is visiting Myrtle Beach from Canada. “I left a busy city on purpose to come to vacation and i'm back in a stressful mode.”
A traffic checkpoint on 501 near the US 17 Bypass interchange had the beach-bound traffic lanes backed up for much of the late morning.
Traffic cameras indicated the backup extended beyond the George Bishop Parkway interchange at one point.
The checkpoint was taken down shortly after noon. A similar event is scheduled from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Myrtle Beach Police Department officials said.
Bikers Lee Ashmore and Mark Stewart, both from Connecticut, say they come to Myrtle Beach once a year to take part in the annual spring Harley rally.
But this year they say they are turned off by the way the city is treating them, adding that a trip next year to the beach doesn't look so good.
"They wanted to stop bike week and now all of a sudden this happens,” Ashmore said. “So who's it being let out too?"
"I've been to Sturgis, been to Daytona, been to Lincolnia, but this is the only place we've seen this," Stewart said.
And it's not just the out-of-towners that were furious. Local business owner Bob Sutton says he drove past the traffic gridlock and couldn't believe what he saw, something he says makes his city look bad in the eyes of others.
"Having a check point on Highway 501 on a Friday during peek driving hours - that's bad for business, bad for the city of Myrtle Beach,” Sutton said. “It's bad for tourism. It's actually a black eye for the city. I don't know who could've looked at that or thought about this and said, ‘Gee, this is a good idea.’"
The city of Myrtle Beach recently passed ordinances put in place to deter bikers from passing through during their traditional spring rallies. The most notable ordinance requires bikers to wear helmets in the city limits. South Carolina law does not require helmets.
Myrtle Beach spokesman Mark Kruea said it was not a coincident this checkpoint was set up when and where it was.
“Meaning that for the last fifteen years the rallies have resulted in you know tremendous increase in traffic, tremendous increase in noise,” Kruea said. “We've had as many fatalities during the three weeks of the rallies as we did during the other forty nine weeks of the year. That was in a good rally period. The rallies the communities said they just did not want have them anymore."
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