Plans to toll two of the Gulf Coast’s busiest commuter crossings are drawing sharp pushback from the families and small businesses that cross Mobile Bay every day.
The Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project would place tolls on the Bankhead and George Wallace tunnels and the Bayway — the I-10 corridor linking Mobile with Baldwin County’s Eastern Shore. Under the proposal, a single commute could run $3 to $6 each way. For a daily round trip, that adds up to roughly $1,500 to $3,000 a year.
Families Feel It First
Ashlyn Hale, a Baldwin County resident who drives across the bay every day for work, said the money is already tight in her household. Asked what the tolls would do to her budget, her answer was blunt: “completely ruin it.” She said she would probably have to take a second job just to absorb the cost.
Small Businesses Pass Costs Along
The burden doesn’t stop at commuters. Delivery companies that shuttle trucks back and forth across the Bayway daily face far larger totals. Michael Bernard of Quick Delivery said his company would have little choice but to pass the expense on: “We have to raise freight costs on shipping.”
Tolling officials have pointed to electronic tolling and pay-by-plate passes as ways to keep traffic moving, but residents note the crossings already back up at rush hour — a frustration the new charges would only compound. The project targeted implementation of the tolls within about six years.