SPANISH FORT – While the proposed extension to the Baldwin Beach Express would be built east of Spanish Fort, the new highway would be a benefit to the community and Eastern Shore, the area’s county commissioner, told City Council members.
Commissioner Joe Davis asked the Spanish Fort City Council to support Amendment 2, which would allow Baldwin County to establish a toll authority to finance the project to extend the Beach Express north to Interstate 65.
Davis said Baldwin County needs the extension, but the only way to pay the $200-million price is to make the highway a toll road. He said the legislation in the amendment would only allow a toll on the new Beach Express extension.
“If the citizens of Baldwin County should want to toll something else, they would have to go forward and have a vote where the citizens will decide what else needs to be done,” Davis said Monday, Oct. 19. “This is not a mechanism to put us into the tolling business. This is to deal with a 24-mile strip that will enhance the county and will only be used, those funds will only be used for the building, maintaining and enhancement of that stretch of road.”
As a commissioner and a member of the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization, which oversees highway projects in the area, Davis opposed plans for a toll on a new Mobile River bridge and renovated Interstate 10 Bayway.
He said one major difference with the new project is that no existing roads would be tolled.
“It’s apples and oranges,” Davis said. “The toll that went east and west had one set of circumstances. This is a north-south. It has to do with being able to get people in and out down on the coast and the key thing for those of us on the Eastern Shore to recognize is that none of us in this room will ever have to ride on that road unless we want to. It’s designed to get people from I-65 down to the coast and back.”
Another difference in the two projects is that the Mobile Bay bridge was a public-private partnership. Davis said the toll authority would be a county agency and would set the toll at an amount needed to pay to build and maintain the extension, but without any additions for profits or other revenue enhancements.
“No money will be spent from the toll on anything other than building, maintaining and enhancing of that road,” Davis said. “That’s written in and that’s the only thing it can be used for and this toll authority has no authority other than that.”
Spanish Fort City Attorney David Conner said the wording in the amendment would not allow tolls on any road now being used in Baldwin County.
“There was concern that the tolls could be used on other roads throughout the county,” Conner said. “This bill was specifically enacted, specifically limited on its face, to only that 24-mile stretch. This authority cannot toll any other road inside Baldwin County, only this road.”
Mayor Mike McMillan said the toll would begin at US 31, south of I-65, allowing drivers to take the Beach Express exit to 31 without paying a toll.
“On this proposed beach express, understand that there is no toll from 65 to 31. The toll picks up at 31 and stops there at I-10 so then it becomes a free road again from Buckee’s basically down to the bridge,” McMillan said. “And here’s the key. You’re not replacing a free road. It is optional if you want to use that road, it’s not something most of us would probably use on a normal basis.”
Davis said the toll-free section of the highway between I-65 and US 31 would allow access to the county Megasite industrial park now being developed near Bay Minette.
“It will create an additional eastern access to the Megasite, which becomes an additional feature as well, touching on that, CSX and the utilities are spending millions of dollars on that site. It is not a matter of if we get something there, it is literally a matter of when,” Davis said.
Davis said much of the planning for the Beach Express extension is complete and the project is only waiting on funding.
“There are bridges involved,” Davis said. “We’ve been in touch with all of the environmental. We have all of the Corps of Engineers permits in place. We also have the federal highway authorities for the exit to 65 in place.”
