The collapse last year of the Francis Scott Key Bridge means years of disrupted traffic patterns — altering the daily routines and finances of many Marylanders.

Pam Moffett, a 60-year-old Dundalk resident, commuted across the bridge and down to the University of Maryland in College Park for nearly 30 years. The bridge collapse meant her two-hour round trip became far longer. And will be for years: The new bridge isn’t expected to be ready for vehicles until fall of 2028.

The March 26, 2024, disaster severed the continuous ring of I-695, forcing commuters to take alternative routes. As a result, I-95, I-895 and both harbor tunnel crossings have become more congested, leading to longer driving times.

Snarled traffic is a common complaint in the neighborhoods on each side of the fallen bridge.

“This is a life-changer,” said Moffett, director of administrative services for the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland. “I never would have bought my house here so far from work without that bridge.”

To make do, Moffett rents a room in a coworker’s home in Berwyn Heights, adjacent to the University of Maryland, to minimize driving time.

“She would have a six-hour commute,” said Scott Moffett, 59, Pam’s husband of 13 years. “When it first happened, she was coming home in tears.”

Since May, the Moffetts have paid $650 a month for the room, plus their roughly $1,400 monthly mortgage. Scott Moffett, chief engineer of Industrial Solutions LLC, said he takes up extra jobs within the company to pay for added household costs.

Even though Maryland avoided large-scale economic doom related to the bridge collapse, the disaster upended the lives of people who relied on the bridge to get to jobs, social events and medical appointments.

A study by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council said the Key Bridge averaged 39,000 crossings per weekday, traffic that now has to find another outlet, such as the tunnels. As a result, a 20-minute commute from Dundalk to Ferndale in northern Anne Arundel County has doubled to 41 minutes.

Amy Jubb, the department chair of school counseling at Sparrows Point High School, said the bridge collapse led to less sleep, increased time in the car and a more hectic daily schedule.

A mother of a high-school student, Jubb said with new increased traffic, it’s a struggle to fit in doctors’ appointments, work meetings, and her son’s sports events.

“I used to have a beautiful, relaxing commute into work,” Jubb, 50, said. “Now, it’s just like I’m a speed car racer trying to beat the clock.”

Louise Ruth, 85, of Dundalk, said she has lost her independence and her ability to get to her doctors’ appointments alone.

With the bridge gone, Ruth has to drive through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel to get to the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie for her appointments. Her fears about driving in the usually busy tunnels mean she relies on her children to take her.

“I’m afraid to go by myself through the tunnel, God forbid, if something would happen,” Ruth said. “It makes it makes it hard for me, because I’m very independent.”

Moffett, the University of Maryland employee, said she is grateful for her room rental but finds living in two houses disorienting.

“It’s a little bit like living out of a suitcase, even though I have my stuff here, you’re always like where’s my clothes?” Moffett said.

Instead of being stuck in traffic for hours, Moffett can go to the gym after work and get to her rental by 6 p.m. to make dinner. On Fridays, she drives back to Dundalk for the weekend.

The Moffetts both said they feel isolated with all the time they spend apart.

“I have to send her a picture of something, versus showing it in person,” Scott Moffett said. “So, it’s just a little lonely.”

The bridge collapse also hurt their social lives. They used to have dinner with their friends who live in Pasadena about once a week, when the drive only took 15-20 minutes, Scott Moffett said. Now, with the trip nearly stretching an hour, they see those friends about once a month.

“You miss those people,” Pam Moffett said.

Many Dundalk residents complain that the bridge collapse has brought heavy truck traffic into the community, making local routes more dangerous.

“Because that bridge is gone, these trucks, some are going through neighborhoods, and people are complaining,” said Suzie Coronel, president of the Norwood Holabird Community Association and a real estate agent in Dundalk. “Your house is shaking.”

The heavy pounding of commercial truck traffic on neighborhood roads causes significant problems, said Ryan Esposito, managing partner of Holabird Tire and Auto.

Esposito wonders if two recent water main breaks were caused by the heavier truck traffic.

The bridge collapse has also affected some Dundalk-area businesses.

Andrew Brown, owner of Modern Discount Liquors, said he saw a significant decline in sales immediately after the collapse. Brown said sales remain about 25% to 30% lower than before the bridge collapse.

Robert Bunce, the maintenance manager of Curtis Bay Energy, a medical waste incinerator facility in Hawkins Point, Baltimore, lives in Sparrows Point, an eight-minute commute across the Key Bridge.

“Now to go to work, it’s at least an hour to get there, and usually an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes to get home,” said Bunce, 55. “It’s a huge difference.”

Bunce took the Curtis Bay job in part because the commute was short.

“I used to spend $100 a week on fuel,” he said. “Now I spend over $200.”

This story was produced by by the Urban Affairs Reporting class at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland in partnership with The Baltimore Banner.