As plans for a new bridge across the Mobile River move closer to reality, transportation officials still don’t have a final price tag for the project — but they are increasingly looking at tolls as one way to help pay for it.
At a briefing for reporters Monday at the Arthur Outlaw Convention Center in downtown Mobile, officials with the Alabama Department of Transportation discussed using tolls to fund a portion of the bridge and bayway project, which is expected to cost more than ALDOT’s entire annual budget. One reason tolling is on the table: roughly 60 percent of the drivers who cross the Mobile River there are from out of state.
“We hope to get some form of [funding] from the federal government and ALDOT,” Transportation Director John Cooper said. “It would be nice to have those replaced with additional funding. We think tolls could be a portion of that …”
ALDOT is studying an electronic tolling system, meaning traffic wouldn’t have to stop at toll booths. Instead, cameras would capture license plates, and drivers would pay by mail or through an online system. The price of the tolls has not yet been set. ALDOT Division Engineer Vince Calametti said the existing Wallace and Bankhead tunnels would stay open to local traffic, though he did not say whether they would remain toll-free.
The overall cost of the project is still uncertain. Cooper said estimates he’s heard range from $800 million to $1.8 billion for the bridge and widening work. More precise figures are expected to emerge from an industry forum held the same day, where roughly 400 contractors, designers and financiers learned more about the scope of the project.
“I’m interested to see what these people believe it’ll take to get it done,” Cooper said.
How much funding ALDOT secures will directly shape how much of the project actually gets built, Cooper told reporters. At minimum, a new bridge has to be constructed and connected to the bayway that carries I-10 traffic across Mobile Bay.
“We’d like to raise [the bayway] … and we’d like to expand it to Spanish Fort,” Cooper said. “It’s not necessary, but if we have the option to do it we will.”
ALDOT’s stated goal is to add two additional lanes on each side of the bayway and to raise the roadway above the level of a 100-year storm surge.
Officials laid out a rough timeline for the process. After the industry forum, ALDOT plans to issue a request for qualifications, then narrow the field to three teams made up of contractors, designers and financiers, according to ALDOT Mobile River Bridge Project Director Matt Ericksen. The agency hopes to have those three teams selected by the end of the year.
From there, ALDOT will work with each team on a request for proposals that includes specific design elements for the bridge. A winning team would then be chosen, with the goal of finalizing a contract by the end of 2018, Cooper said. Construction, expected to last roughly four to four and a half years, would begin in the spring of 2019.
Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said the long-awaited bridge is sorely needed, arguing that traffic gridlock at the Wallace Tunnel “stifles the economy,” hurts residents’ quality of life and discourages activity downtown.
“Within a year from now we’ll see a lot of good progress,” Stimpson told reporters.
Calametti underscored just how overburdened the current crossing has become. The Wallace Tunnel was designed to carry roughly 36,000 vehicles a day, he said, but now sees an average of 75,000 vehicles daily — a figure that climbs to 100,000 during peak travel times. Ericksen said a completed bridge should save commuters as much as 15 minutes compared with the current trip through the tunnel.
State Sen. Bill Hightower, R-Mobile, a potential 2018 gubernatorial candidate, told reporters the bridge matters not just for Mobile but for the wider Gulf Coast region, from Texas to Florida, and said financing it may require some creative solutions. Baldwin County Commission Chairman Chris Elliott, who was running for a State Senate seat at the time, said all funding options remain on the table given the project’s outsized impact on local residents.
The Interstate 10 bottleneck at the Wallace Tunnel has long been considered one of the most significant chokepoints on the Gulf Coast, and a new Mobile River crossing has been discussed by regional planners for years as a way to relieve congestion, improve hurricane evacuation routes and support continued growth on both sides of Mobile Bay.