Maryland transportation officials reopened all lanes on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Monday afternoon after an 18-wheeler plunged off it 36 hours before, but not before facing criticism over the bridge’s weak barriers and traffic pattern.

“The reality is that yesterday’s tragedy did not have to be as serious and as disruptive as it was,” AAA spokesman Lon Anderson said. “Had the truck stayed on the bridge, we might not have had a fatality. Had there not been two-way traffic on the bridge at the time, would there have been a crash, or would it have been as severe?”

Sunday’s accident, which killed the truck driver and involved two other vehicles, caused 13-mile backups leading to the bridge, the major artery between the Washington area and the Maryland and Delaware beaches.

The bridge’s westbound span was closed and traffic was running in both directions on the eastbound span at the time of the deadly accident.

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Anderson said fatalities are more likely on the four-mile Bay Bridge when traffic is running two ways. In May 2007, during two-way traffic, three people were killed and five others injured in a seven-vehicle crash.

Traffic safety advocates said the bridge’s concrete barriers are only heavy enough to protect passenger vehicles and not tractor-trailers.

Maryland Transportation Authority engineer Geoffrey Kolberg said the concrete walls are designed according to standards set by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Maryland has recently seen two accidents involving trucks and apparently weak walls, Anderson said.

In 2006, a motorist traveling on Interstate 270 and the Capital Beltway was killed when debris fell off a truck on a bridge onto the Beltway.

In 2004, five people died when a gas tanker truck crashed through a barrier on an I-895 overpass and landed on I-95 near Baltimore.

A spokesman for Maryland Transportation Authority Police declined to discuss the cause of the accident.

Authorities reopened the right lane of the eastbound span of the bridge, closed to allow engineers to repair the barrier, at 4 p.m. Monday.

The Associated Press and Staff Writer Jamie Malarkey contributed to this report.

tluntz@dcexaminer.com