DAPHNE — Work is moving forward to start the new Mobile River bridge and Bayway, but local officials and residents still have questions about the project.

When completed, the route is expected to require a toll for traffic moving over the bridge and Bayway. Existing highways, the Causeway, Wallace Tunnel, Bankhead Tunnel and Africatown Bridge, will not be tolled.

Spanish Fort Mayor Mike McMillan said that if the Causeway is the only free route, traffic on that road and through Spanish Fort, will increase.

"We know what's going to happen," McMillan said at the January meeting of the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization. "When they start construction, the Causeway is going to become a parking lot. I just want this done before they start construction."

McMillan said he has expressed his concerns to John Cooper, Alabama Department of Transportation director. He said Cooper told him that ALDOT is looking at what improvements will be needed on the Causeway before work begins on I-10.

"We spoke and he assured me that they are looking at it," McMillan said.
Under the plan endorsed by the Eastern Shore and Mobile MPOs, the project would be built and a toll of up to $2.50 charged for traffic using the Bayway and new bridge.

Resident Lou Campomenosi, a member of the Common Sense Tea Party, said the group's board is skeptical of state support and whether the toll will not be more.

"There's a lot of this question about trust and the degree to which the $2.50 toll, if we're going to agree on it, if that comes true, it depends upon the governor's support for this and I don't think it's unreasonable for you all to push hard on this particular issue," Campomenosi said.

He said Gov. Kay Ivey has not expressed her support for the project as she has for other highway improvements around the state.

"In the governor's State of the State, she talked about a six-lane highway from Theodore to Irvingon," he said. "She talked about Mobile to Tuscaloosa, a four-lane highway. Nowhere did she say anything about this project, and it seems to me that it's incumbent upon you all I guess to reach out to the governor and get a commitment from her."

Fairhope City Councilman Jack Burrell, chairman of the Eastern Shore MPO, said Ivey has directed ALDOT to work with local officials on the project.

"The Mobile and Eastern Shore MPOs authorized their chairpersons to write the letter to the governor asking her to authorize ALDOT and so she was the one to authorize ALDOT to work with us," Burrell said. "So, I don't believe that Director Cooper and ALDOT would have worked with us had they not been directed by the governor. So, I do think that she is in support."

Matt Ericksen, division engineer for ALDOT, said the project will take about five years to complete once construction starts. He said officials have to complete traffic and cost studies before beginning construction.

"We've got to have the traffic projections before we can address all the issues on the Causeway or the tolling issues, so we're working on that," Ericksen said. "In conjunction, we'll be working on our funding and financial plan and the director is committed to put together a detailed financing plan to share with the MPOs and the public."

He said construction could start as early as the first quarter of 2023.
Plans to build the new bridge and expand the Bayway was called off in 2019 when the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization removed the project from its Transportation Improvement Plan. The removal made the $2.1-billion project ineligible for federal funding.

The proposed toll on the bridge and Bayway was $6 for a one-way trip in a car, according to reports at the time. Members of the MPO said in 2019 that the toll would hurt the local economy and be too expensive for many residents.