The hellish traffic on Hunt Club Rd. will be saved from gridlock thanks to the new Strandherd Armstrong Bridge.

Well, that has always been the hope. Suburban residents are crossing their fingers that the $48-million bridge will be their saviour.

It probably won’t be until September that the city gets a good idea how motorists are responding to the new bridge, once summer vacations are finished and roads are packed with cars.

Two of the busiest intersections in the city are at Hunt Club on both sides of the Rideau River. It’s probably by no coincidence the intersections at Riverside Dr. and Prince of Wales Dr. consistently show up in the list of top collision sites in the city.

For workers just looking to get to their suburban homes after a long day of work, the southbound commute can be terribly unpredictable.

Chris Hill works in the heart of downtown and the drive to his home in Riverside South is anywhere between 20 and 60 minutes.

“It all hinges on Hunt Club and to the extent it gets backed up,” Hill said Wednesday.

So far, there hasn’t been a major impact for north-south commuters since the bridge opened last weekend.

“What people are uncertain of if how this will make things better or worse from a north-south perspective,” said Hill, president of the Riverside South Community Association.

For example, southbound Barrhaven residents on Riverside Dr. could cross Hunt Club and continue to the bridge, rather than face bumper-to-bumper traffic over the Hunt Club bridge. Same goes for Riverside South residents trying to get home via Prince of Wales.

The problem is, no one knows what other motorists will do. Hill said it will be a “gamble” for residents.

“Psychologically, we’re all trying to struggle with the same types of things,” he said.

The city is monitoring traffic patterns and adjusting traffic signals based on public feedback and what staff observe on traffic cameras.

City traffic services manager Phil Landry said all travellers ­— motorists, pedestrians and cyclists — are making good use of the bridge so far.

“We anticipate that summer holiday traffic will return to normal volumes at the end of August and peak during the first week of September,” Landry said in an e-mail. “Up to that point, we expect that motorists will be testing different routes and traffic volumes will shift on the various corridors leading to the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge.”

Twitter: @JonathanWilling