I spent some time on Thursday observing the traffic headache on Germantown’s north side at the Bobby Lanier Bridge over the Wolf River.

And yes, for northbound traffic on Germantown Road, the bridge construction and the subsequent closing of the span for those heading from Germantown to Cordova is a mess.

As many of you have noted on social media and in correspondences.

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For those who don’t commute through that major eastern artery, the bridge over the Wolf was closed for northbound traffic on March 1. Not just narrowed to one-lane or shifting traffic patterns to cover both directions.

Nope, shut down. Closed off. Barricaded. Basically, the elimination of a straight route on Germantown Road into Cordova.

For northbound traffic.

Southbound lanes are open.

So you get a straight shot south out of Cordova. You’ve just got a roundabout venture to get from Germantown to Agricenter and other points north.

Drivers line up to pick which lane-change to use. They slalom through the orange and white barrels. Horns blare as some drivers decide to cheat the system by turning from the wrong lane across traffic. People raise their hands in frustration as someone takes too long to decide which way they want to navigate the construction. (I know this happened because I was the one pleading with the man in front of me to pick a lane).

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The matter is compounded by the improvement work previously started at Germantown Road and Wolf River Boulevard. That’s a City of Germantown project; the bridge is a state project.

“It’s an inconvenience,” Nichole Lawrence, spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Transportation in this end of the state, said, adding that all construction is an inconvenience.

A major culprit in this is a lack of river crossings out that way. Between Interstate 240 and the Shelby-Fayette county line, there are only four bridges spanning the river. Collierville-Arlington Road at the county line, Houston Levee on the north end of Collierville and the Germantown Road bridge.

We will include the crossing on Walnut Grove Road just for accuracy’s sake. Oh, and as the alternative for the bridge crossing. For those in north Germantown the suggested detour is to take Wolf River Boulevard west until it bends around to Humphreys Boulevard and connects with Walnut Grove. Then take Walnut Grove eastward across Shelby Farms back the Germantown Parkway.

The project is a full deck repair of the bridge at a cost of $7.4 million. The new surface is a polymer modified concrete overlay. All of that is very temperature sensitive, and this is the time that the temperature is right, Lawrence said. Which is why crews couldn’t really wait until after school lets out to close the bridge.

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But even when school is out, there will be others who are inconvenienced by this.

I did find one benefit — the line at the Chick-fil-A was much shorter Thursday morning.

For those fed up with the detour, relief is on the way. Lawrence said the northbound lanes should open by 6 a.m. Monday. And while there could be some individual lane closures before completion of the project at the end of May, the northbound lanes will not be cut off entirely again.

As for the southbound commuters, your time is coming. At some point — and there is no definite timetable yet — crews will close those lanes.

And the grousing will begin anew.

But you’ve been warned.