A draft list of the nation’s top infrastructure priorities being reviewed by the incoming Trump administration left Alabama off entirely, omitting Mobile’s long-sought Interstate 10 bridge over the Mobile River — a project local and state officials have pushed for years as vital to easing one of the worst bottlenecks on the Gulf Coast.
The draft, which surfaced in the press in late January, lists roughly 50 infrastructure projects from across the country but does not include a single one from Alabama. The list originated from a request the National Governors Association sent to every state’s governor in mid-December, asking each to submit three to five priority infrastructure projects that the incoming administration would consider vetting for a new federal infrastructure investment program.
Yasamie August, spokesperson for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, said the governor’s office met that deadline and submitted a list that included the Mobile River bridge along with several smaller projects. She said the omission was not the result of any error on Alabama’s part.
“It is important to note, the governor’s office did not make a mistake,” August said in a statement. “The National Governors Association asked all the states to submit a list of priorities in December, as we did. That information was then submitted to what was then the Trump transition team. The list of projects released this week was not reflective of all the projects submitted by the states. The list Alabama submitted included the Mobile River Bridge and other smaller projects.”
August pointed out that Bentley has been pressing the issue for some time, noting that the governor testified before Congress in 2015 about the need to fund large-scale projects like the Mobile River bridge. Questions remain, however, about exactly when the state’s list reached the association responsible for compiling it. The document provided by the governor’s office as the submitted list is undated, but the underlying file was created on Jan. 24 — the same day the draft list without any Alabama projects became public. When asked to confirm that the same list had in fact been received earlier by the National Governors Association, August did not respond.
U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, who represents Mobile and has long championed a new bridge across the Mobile River, said his office moved quickly once the draft list became public.
“As soon as we heard about the situation, my office reached out to the new staff at the federal Department of Transportation to emphasize the need for the I-10 bridge,” Byrne said in a statement. “We have been reassured they are aware of the project and that the project list is not final or comprehensive. I believe our efforts have succeeded in assuring the I-10 bridge will be on the list.”
Mike Lee, chairman of the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce’s Build the Bridge Coalition, said the omission was troubling but that he was encouraged the matter was being sorted out quickly.
“It’s important to get back on there and get it corrected,” Lee said. “We’ve been told from the federal level that it’s a major bottleneck on I-10 between Los Angeles and Jacksonville, so it should be high profile.”
The stretch of I-10 through downtown Mobile, including the aging Wallace Tunnels beneath the Mobile River, has for years been identified by transportation planners as one of the most congested and structurally constrained sections of the interstate system along the Gulf Coast, making a new bridge and bypass a priority for business and civic leaders on both sides of Mobile Bay.
National Governors Association spokesperson Elena Waskey confirmed in a phone interview that the organization did receive a list of priority projects from Bentley’s office, though she would not specify when it arrived. Asked whether she could guarantee the Mobile River bridge would appear on any final list vetted by Trump administration officials, Waskey said she was confident it would.
“Yes, absolutely,” she said. “The bridge will be on the list.”
For now, state and local officials say they are continuing to press federal transportation officials to ensure the Mobile River bridge project is formally recognized as the review of state infrastructure priorities continues in Washington.