A proposal to build a towering new Interstate 10 crossing of the Mobile River set off a rising storm along the downtown waterfront, with critics warning that the fight could rival the public uproar that scuttled an elevated downtown expressway two decades earlier.
At the heart of the dispute lay the Wallace Tunnel, long regarded by state and federal engineers as one of the most troublesome bottlenecks on the interstate system. Stalled motorists, accident victims and state troopers all felt the strain of funneling interstate traffic through the aging tubes, and highway officials argued that a new span was overdue.
From fourteen routes to three
Planners had drafted as many as 14 alternate routes to unravel the congestion. In recent weeks the list was whittled to three finalists, an outcome that alarmed preservationists and maritime interests because none of the surviving options followed the northern alignment they preferred. The Alabama Department of Transportation continued an environmental impact study of the remaining routes, with the price of the project estimated at somewhere between $700 million and $1 billion.
ALDOT engineers described the span in soaring terms, suggesting it could become Mobile’s answer to the Golden Gate Bridge. Opponents saw the matter very differently, and the publication canvassed a wide range of interested parties.
Preservation and downtown worries
Leaders of the Historic Mobile Preservation Society argued that pylons rising some 500 feet and a roadbed at least 200 feet high would literally overshadow the city’s historic core. They favored routes that would upgrade existing highway alignments, or as a last resort, a return to the idea of additional tunnels. Public participation meetings, one critic complained, had offered little genuine discussion.
Downtown investors and preservationists including representatives of Oakleigh House and the Renaissance effort insisted that a bridge looming over the cruise terminal, the new maritime museum and nearby historic districts would smother the very redevelopment the city had worked for years to nurture. Several pointed to New Orleans and other cities where property beneath elevated spans had languished.
Port and cruise interests weigh in
Officials tied to the cruise trade cautioned that all three routes would affect the Mobile Alabama Cruise Terminal to some degree, and that the two northern-most options could take part of the terminal site outright. They stressed that any span would need to clear roughly 220 feet to accommodate the newer, taller cruise ships.
Alabama State Port Authority director Jimmy Lyons said the route just south of the cruise terminal appeared to carry the least impact and urged that the badly needed project move forward soon. Airport authority and shipyard representatives, meanwhile, warned that severing access between the interstate and the State Docks, container terminal and Brookley could damage the region’s chief competitive advantage.
Not everyone accepted the premise. One family shipyard operator, whose business dated to 1895, said the northern-most route under study would wipe out the company entirely, and he pressed instead for a plan pairing a northern bypass with a crossing alongside the Cochrane Bridge. That alternative, he and others argued, would relieve the tunnel, spur growth in Prichard and open the wider trade area to development.
A decision still years away
Baldwin County lawmaker Bradley Byrne said each remaining route carried problems, and he worried aloud that the cost could crowd out badly needed hurricane evacuation and four-laning projects on the Eastern Shore. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, for his part, counseled patience, saying the choice rightly belonged to the transportation department and its engineers in concert with local leaders, and deserved careful study and much discussion.
For all the passion on display, the outcome remained unsettled. The environmental review had yet to be completed, and residents on both sides braced for a debate that promised to shape the look of the waterfront for a generation.