MOBILE, Ala. — After roughly three decades of studies, false starts and fierce arguments over tolls, the Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge is about to become a construction site. Gov. Kay Ivey announced Tuesday that she has formally authorized construction of the $3.2 billion Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, and the Mobile River Bridge groundbreaking is set for Friday, Oct. 2, in Mobile.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will join Ivey and other state and local leaders for the ceremony. The Governor’s Office said the event is by invitation only because of limited space, and that additional details will be released in the coming days.
The state calls the project the largest transportation infrastructure undertaking in Alabama history. On the Baldwin County side of the bay, where tens of thousands of commuters funnel each day toward the George Wallace Tunnel, local leaders say they are ready for the relief it promises.
The final procedural step
The formal go-ahead came on Friday, Sept. 25, when the Alabama Department of Transportation, acting on behalf of the Alabama Toll Road, Bridge and Tunnel Authority, issued a notice to proceed to the Kiewit Massman Traylor design-build team, the joint venture selected to build the project. According to the Governor’s Office, that notice was the last procedural step needed before construction could begin. It followed the close of the state’s bond sales and federal financing earlier this month.
“At long last, we are officially moving from talking about the need for the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project to actually building it,” Ivey said in a statement. “This project will transform travel through Baldwin and Mobile counties, strengthen a vital interstate corridor and benefit Alabama for generations to come. This is a win for the citizens in Baldwin and Mobile counties, a win for the state of Alabama and a win for the Gulf Coast region. It’s time to build the bridge, y’all!”
Word of a Friday groundbreaking had begun circulating before the governor’s announcement. Jack Burrell, chairman of the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization, said publicly that the ceremony would take place Friday, even as an ALDOT spokesman said at the time that the agency had not yet announced a date. Tuesday’s statement from Montgomery made it official.
What Phase One will build
The $3.2 billion first phase is narrower than the bridge-and-new-Bayway plan Alabama once envisioned, but it still reshapes the I-10 corridor across the upper end of Mobile Bay. According to the Governor’s Office and ALDOT, Phase One includes:
- A new six-lane, cable-stayed bridge carrying I-10 across the Mobile River, rising about 215 feet above the shipping channel that serves the Port of Mobile.
- Three lanes of travel in each direction across the existing 7.5-mile Bayway, created largely by converting shoulders into travel lanes.
- Reconstruction of about one mile of the Bayway where it ties into the new bridge.
- Other I-10 improvements in both Mobile and Baldwin counties, including work at interchanges.
The new bridge and the Phase One improvements are expected to open to traffic in approximately five years, putting the likely opening around 2031. A separate, entirely new crossing over the bay itself has been pushed to a possible future phase because of cost.
The 215-foot clearance has driven the bridge’s design and cost from the beginning. The Mobile River is a working deep-water channel, and a lower span would restrict the vessels that call on the port. It is also a key reason the new bridge can carry trucks that today must detour around the height-restricted Wallace Tunnel.
How the money came together
The funding package took most of September to finalize. Alabama sold revenue bonds to investors on Sept. 17, and the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a loan of up to $2.52 billion through the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, program the following day. The Alabama Toll Road, Bridge and Tunnel Authority is the borrower; ALDOT will build and manage the project.
Previous reporting on the financing identified these major sources:
- A federal TIFIA loan of up to $2.52 billion, to be repaid with toll revenue.
- A $550 million federal Bridge Investment Program grant awarded in 2024.
- A $125 million federal INFRA grant.
- At least $250 million in state money from ALDOT.
- Toll revenue bonds sold to private investors.
Bond documents show the Alabama Toll Road, Bridge and Tunnel Authority issued nearly $3.8 billion in bonds and notes for the project, which, including financing costs, is budgeted at about $4.15 billion. ALDOT officials have said the TIFIA loan will be drawn near the end of the five-year construction period to pay off higher-interest short-term borrowing.
ALDOT has also said it has spent roughly $500 million on the corridor since 1997 on right-of-way purchases, engineering and environmental studies, work that allowed the project to move quickly once financing closed.
Baldwin County leaders: ‘It’s going to have such a regional impact’
For Eastern Shore officials, the bridge is less about a ceremony than about the daily backups that ripple from the Wallace Tunnel onto the Bayway and into their cities.
Daphne Mayor Robin LeJeune said the project is critical as the Gulf Coast continues to grow, particularly because a single crash can paralyze traffic on the only interstate link across the bay.
“If there’s a wreck on the interstate or a wreck on the Bayway, it causes major issues, especially for Daphne and along the Interstate,” LeJeune said. “It completely affects us. So having a bridge, having widening the I-10 interstate, so if there is a wreck, traffic can still flow, which will help alleviate a lot of the issues Daphne sees.”
Burrell, a Fairhope city councilman who chairs the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization, said the benefits could reach across Baldwin County, from commuters to the beach economy in the county’s southern end.
“It’s going to have such a regional impact. You know, it’s going to drive this economy,” Burrell said. “People that commute back and forth to work, it’s going to make their lives easier. It’s going to make it easier for people to make it to our beaches of South Baldwin County to spend money.”
Drivers who have spent years inching toward the tunnel said they are ready for an alternative. Fairhope resident Lee Avinger said the new bridge will become the preferred route.
“I definitely will be taking that new bridge to avoid the tunnel because the tunnel is quite frustrating, to say the least,” Avinger said. “Growing up here, everybody gets in the tunnel and hits the brakes at the bottom, so that will be nice to divert the traffic to the bridge. I think overall it is going to be effective.”
What it will cost drivers
The bridge and the reconfigured Bayway will be tolled, and tolls will remain in place until the debt is repaid. Tolling is not expected to start until the new bridge opens. ALDOT has listed these opening rates for a standard passenger vehicle:
- ALGO Pass, per trip: $3
- ALGO Pass monthly unlimited plan: $60 per month
- Compatible transponder from another toll agency: $7.70
- Pay-by-plate, with no transponder: $15.40
Bond documents released this month show per-trip tolls will adjust automatically every Jan. 1. For the first 10 years after tolling begins, rates will rise by 5% or by the inflation rate for Southern urban consumers, whichever is higher. ALDOT has said the $60 monthly plan will not change for 10 years. The disclosure surprised several local officials, including Burrell, who had been told for years that rates would stay fixed.
Toll-free routes across the bay will remain available. ALDOT has said the Causeway, the Wallace Tunnel, the Bankhead Tunnel and the Africatown Bridge will not be tolled.
State Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, has drafted legislation that would give Alabama residents with ALGO transponders a state income tax credit for tolls paid on the bridge and Bayway. That proposal would need approval from the Legislature.
A groundbreaking on a busy day in Mobile
The ceremony lands on the same day President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a 6 p.m. midterm campaign rally at the University of South Alabama’s Mitchell Center. The Governor’s Office announcement does not say whether Trump will attend the bridge groundbreaking, and it remained unclear this week whether he would.
The president’s visit has also added attention to a separate debate over what the new span should be called. U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, has proposed naming it the “Gateway to the Gulf of America, the Donald J. Trump Bridge,” and other Alabama Republican lawmakers have voiced support for a Trump name. Other suggestions have included singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron and a simple geographic name. ALDOT has said naming roads and bridges is a matter for the Alabama Legislature.
Many local officials say the name matters less than getting the bridge built and fixing the commute. Mobile City Councilman Ben Reynolds said he would be open to naming the bridge after Trump if doing so somehow led to forgiveness of the federal loan and eliminated the need for tolls. For now, tolls remain central to the financing plan.
Anyone planning to be downtown or near the university Friday should expect heavy security and possible traffic delays tied to the presidential visit. Because the groundbreaking is invitation-only, the public will not be admitted to the ceremony site.
Work already getting underway
Preparations are visible in Mobile even before Friday. The Mobile City Council this month approved an agreement allowing ALDOT to place temporary vibration monitors at Old City Hall, the Phoenix Fire Museum and a location near the Wallace Tunnel beginning Oct. 1, so engineers can track how construction affects historic buildings near the project. The equipment is to be removed no later than Oct. 1, 2031.
The Water Street ramps downtown could also come down as the new bridge’s footprint takes shape, and drivers should expect lane shifts, overnight closures and detours on I-10 and nearby downtown streets as work ramps up over the next five years. ALDOT typically announces closures in advance.
Decades in the making
The need for a second crossing has been discussed since the 1990s. The Wallace Tunnel, which opened in 1973, was built for far less traffic than it now carries, and its height limits force hazardous-cargo trucks onto surface routes through downtown Mobile. The Bayway, meanwhile, is exposed to storm surge and has no easy alternate route when crashes block it.
A 2019 plan that paired a new river bridge with a new Bayway collapsed after a public revolt over proposed tolls of up to $6 per trip, and the regional planning organizations in Mobile and Baldwin counties voted to remove it from their plans. Local leaders revived the project in 2021 with a smaller toll framework. Rising costs later pushed a new bay crossing out of the first phase, and in 2025 ALDOT parted ways with the team originally picked to build the project and moved forward with Kiewit Massman Traylor on the current plan to build the river bridge and restripe the Bayway to six lanes.
A coalition of business groups on both sides of the bay kept the idea alive through those setbacks, and the federal grants and loan secured over the last two years closed the remaining gap.
What to know
- Groundbreaking: Friday, Oct. 2, in Mobile; invitation-only because of space constraints.
- Who will attend: Gov. Kay Ivey, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and other state and local officials.
- Builder: Kiewit Massman Traylor design-build team.
- Cost: $3.2 billion for construction of Phase One.
- Timeline: About five years; opening expected around 2031.
- Tolls: $3 per trip with an ALGO Pass or $60 per month unlimited, beginning when the bridge opens.
- Free routes: The Causeway, Wallace Tunnel, Bankhead Tunnel and Africatown Bridge.
For Baldwin County commuters, Friday’s ceremony marks the start of a long construction period rather than an end to the tunnel backups. But after nearly 30 years of waiting, officials on both sides of the bay say the work is finally beginning.