An Alabama government body has signed off on a financing plan for the long-awaited I-10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project.
The Alabama Toll Road, Bridge and Tunnel Authority approved a toll policy in mid-August setting tolls at $3 per trip when using an ALGO pass, according to a report from 1819 News. That’s up from the previously reported $2.50 per trip.
That report quoted Chief Engineer for the Alabama Department of Transportation Ed Austin as saying, “Construction inflation and engineering challenges on the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway as originally conceived make this project financially unachievable. Working closely with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, we developed a phased approach that reduces the construction cost of the initial project to approximately $3.2 billion.”
Phase 1 of the project will reportedly take approximately five years to complete and will build the new six-lane bridge, improve several interchanges and modify the existing Bayway to six lanes. Phase 2 will then replace the Bayway.
The Alabama Department of Transportation, the Mobile Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization recently announced a new phased approach for the project. Under that plan, the bridge is expected to open in 2031.
Powered byDriving factors behind the switch to a phased construction strategy, according to ALDOT, include inflation, higher labor and material costs, engineering and geotechnical challenges on the Bayway and federal regulatory requirements. Additionally, new engineering analysis determined that constructing a new Bayway and bridge simultaneously would not be financial sustainable.
