Drivers and boaters near Bay City should be aware of planned overnight activity on the M-25 Veterans Memorial Bridge beginning Thursday evening. The Michigan Department of Transportation will perform intermittent test openings of the bascule portion of the bridge over the Saginaw River, with testing scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. on March 26th and continue through the morning of March 27th.
Each test opening is expected to last approximately 15 minutes, and the bridge will open and close multiple times throughout the night as crews verify that the bascule mechanism is functioning properly following recent maintenance and improvement work. Drivers crossing the bridge during that overnight window should plan for the possibility of delays if their timing coincides with one of the scheduled openings.
What a Bascule Bridge Is and Why Testing Matters
For residents unfamiliar with the term, a bascule bridge is a type of movable drawbridge that operates on a counterweight system — the bridge deck pivots upward to create a vertical clearance that allows boat traffic to pass beneath. The M-25 Veterans Memorial Bridge uses this mechanism to accommodate marine traffic on the Saginaw River, which remains an active waterway for commercial and recreational vessels.
Bascule bridges are mechanically complex structures that require regular maintenance and periodic testing to ensure all moving components — the pivot mechanism, counterweights, locking systems, and control equipment — are functioning correctly and safely. After maintenance or improvement work has been completed, test openings are the standard method of verifying that the bridge will operate reliably under real conditions before it is returned to full normal service.
Testing overnight rather than during peak daytime traffic hours is a deliberate choice that minimizes disruption to commuters and commercial drivers who depend on the bridge during the day. A 15-minute closure at 11 p.m. affects far fewer people than the same closure at noon, and MDOT’s decision to schedule the testing after 9 p.m. reflects consideration for the traveling public even while necessary work is being completed.
A $1.6 Million Investment in Bridge Infrastructure
The test openings are the final step before the completion of a $1.6 million project to maintain and improve the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Work on the project is expected to be fully wrapped up by March 31st — putting the bridge back in full service just days after the overnight testing concludes.
A $1.6 million investment in a single bridge is a significant commitment of public infrastructure dollars, and it reflects both the scale of what maintaining a movable bridge requires and the importance of keeping a crossing of this type in reliable operating condition. Bascule bridges involve mechanical systems that do not benefit from deferred maintenance — components that are not serviced regularly deteriorate in ways that eventually require far more expensive repairs or, in the worst case, unplanned closures that affect traffic flow and commerce far more disruptively than scheduled maintenance windows.
The Veterans Memorial Bridge carries M-25 traffic over the Saginaw River and serves as a critical connection for drivers, businesses, and emergency responders in the Bay City area. Keeping it functional, safe, and properly maintained is exactly the kind of infrastructure investment that tends to go unnoticed when it is done well and becomes very noticeable when it is not.
What Drivers and Boaters Need to Know
For drivers planning to use the M-25 bridge on the night of March 26th or the early morning of March 27th, the key facts are simple: expect intermittent closures of approximately 15 minutes each, beginning at 9 p.m. If your travel can be scheduled to avoid that overnight window, doing so will eliminate any risk of delay. If you need to cross during the testing period, building extra time into your schedule is advisable.
For boaters on the Saginaw River during the testing window, the repeated openings of the bascule span provide an unusual opportunity — the bridge will be cycling through its full range of motion multiple times throughout the night, and marine traffic that needs to pass through during testing hours may be able to do so during one of the scheduled openings. Coordinating with MDOT or monitoring the bridge’s status before heading out on the water that night is the safest approach.
Work is expected to be fully complete by March 31st, at which point the bridge returns to normal operation and the recent maintenance investment begins delivering the extended service life it was designed to produce.
Michigan’s transportation infrastructure has been a recurring theme across the Thumb region in recent months. The Putman family’s ongoing legal action against the Tuscola County Road Commission — stemming from a fatal crash at an intersection where safety improvements were repeatedly requested and delayed — is a stark reminder of what can happen when road infrastructure maintenance and safety upgrades do not happen on the timeline that communities need. The M-25 bridge project represents the other side of that story: an investment made proactively, completed on schedule, and tested properly before the work is declared done.
For real-time updates on the M-25 Veterans Memorial Bridge test openings, current road conditions, and any traffic impacts during the overnight testing period, Michigan’s MiDrive system provides live traffic information and construction updates for roads and bridges across the state. And for those wanting to track the full scope of MDOT’s bridge maintenance and improvement projects across Michigan, the Michigan Department of Transportation’s bridge information page maintains updated records on bridge conditions, project timelines, and infrastructure investment statewide.
