Regulation of the Day: Drawbridge Schedules in Sturgeon Bay, WI

The second installment of an occasional series that shines a little light on what the regulatory state is up to.

Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the Department of Homeland Security (208,000 employees, $52 billion 2009 budget).

Sturgeon Bay (pop. 9,778) is the largest city in Door County, Wisconsin. It’s a fine place to take a vacation, by the way. The downtown’s historic Michigan Street Bridge is under repair this summer, increasing traffic over Sturgeon Bay’s other drawbridge. The drawbridge’s raising/lowering schedule needs to be adjusted to fit the changed traffic patterns and still allow boats access to the ship canal.

This is not rocket science – bridge up, bridge down. But apparently neither the city nor the state Department of Transportation was up to the task, because they asked the federal government to create a revised drawbridge schedule for them. The result appears on pages 26,952 – 26,954 of the 2009 Federal Register.