Were you heading to St. Pete Monday morning? Here’s why you were delayed

As if the first day of school doesn’t bring enough traffic to deal with, an accident on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge at around 7:30 a.m. no doubt made Monday morning congestion worse and a second accident occurred almost immediately after the first accident was cleared.

The second accident took place at about 9 a.m. just south of the toll plaza in the northbound lanes heading toward the bridge that blocked one northbound lane. The extent of the accident was unknown, but authorities didn’t clear the scene until about 12:15 p.m.

Sarasota Manatee Regional Transportation Management Center reported that the first accident also occurred in the northbound lanes of the bridge itself and that one lane of the bridge was blocked, causing backup on I-275 well into Palmetto.

At about 8:45 a.m., the RTMC reported the crash scene on the bridge had been cleared, but residual traffic continued to be an issue well into Monday morning from both accidents.

Southbound lanes were not affected by the crash, but RTMC did report heavy morning back-to-school traffic had made southbound lanes over the Desoto Bridge slow going for a time.

This story was originally published August 12, 2019 at 8:00 AM.