Waterways Bridge is on ALDOT bid letting list for the third time

Waterways Bridge is on ALDOT bid letting list for the third time

By John Mullen
The on-again, off-again Alabama Department of Transportation bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway is on for the third time.
The state announced the estimated $80 million bridge project would be on the bid letting list for Sept. 30. It has appeared on the monthly list – in July and December of 2021 – but was pulled both times.
Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon asked for 90 days for the state to continue negotiations with the Baldwin County Bridge Company on a second span at the toll booth that BCBC would have to guarantee would take 40 percent of the traffic off of the State Route 59 bridge in Gulf Shores.
The proposed new bridge would be located about two miles west of the toll bridge, which opened in 2000.
Those negotiations have broken down ALDOT spokesman Tony Harris said in a release.
One person happy with the result is Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft.
“I am glad to learn that the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) has refused a proposal that would have placed the transportation fate of Alabama’s beaches in the hands of a foreign bridge company for the next 50 years,” Craft said in a statement.
“Thirteen months of negotiations between ALDOT and the toll bridge owners culminated in a proposal that would enforce a 50-year restriction on building any new, free, public bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) between State Highway 59 in Gulf Shores and State Highway 161 in Orange Beach. This 50-year restriction would remain regardless of future growth, traffic conditions, or any other justifiable need.”
One of the proposals purported on the table was a free pass to all Baldwin County residents to go over the toll spans.
“Proponents of the toll bridge company’s plan have focused on their proposal to provide Baldwin County residents toll-free passes,” Craft said. “However, any deal that would allow a foreign bridge company to control access and dictate the expansion of transportation infrastructure in any part of Alabama is a bad deal.”
Harris said in a release on Sept. 1 that ALDOT has decided to once again move forward with the project.
“We’re dissatisfied with the lack of progress in negotiations with the toll bridge company,” Harris said.
“There’s no solution that satisfies everyone but we can’t keep chipping away without progress. To ensure progress, we are advertising to take bids on the same project that received an overwhelming positive response from local citizens and leaders in 2018. We believe it’s ALDOT’s obligation to ensure that a bridge gets built; the best way to ensure that is for ALDOT to build it.”
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Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon has been a proponent of the state bridge in the past but supported the prospect of another span for the toll bridge to help with traffic there.

“Just wait and see the cost of the other bridge,” Kennon said.
“Mayor Kennon and I even released a joint letter to the editor in 2018 which referenced this project as “our bridge to the future,” Mayor Craft stated.
More than $20 million has already been spent buying right of way for the bridge landing on the south side of the canal and a road spur from the Beach Express south of Coastal Gateway Boulevard to the north side landing of the new bridge.
“While some try to make this a Gulf Shores project or a Gulf Shores versus Orange Beach debate, it is not. This project was designed by ALDOT as their solution to traffic congestion on State Highway 59,’’ Mayor Craft said. “The proposed bridge begins in Gulf Shores and lands in Orange Beach. The project has received overwhelming public support from local residents, tourism officials, hospital leaders, and elected officials.’’
Craft added that the new bridge will immediately improve traffic conditions on Hwuy. 59, and also provide an additional evacuation route off the island and create the foundation for new transportation infrastructure on both sides of the bridge.
“That is critical to accommodate the continued growth and success of Alabama’s beaches,’’ Mayor Craft said.
A planned bypass south of the Gulf Pines bypass is still in the permitting stage. The city hopes to use RESTORE funding supplemented by money from ALDOT to pay for the bypass.
“We have joint partnerships with ALDOT to build that road, Canal Road reroute,” Mayor Robert Craft said at a town hall meeting last spring. “We had this road planned and it was going to be jointly funded by a RESTORE grant that the city got as well as with ALDOT’s participation. It was designed to go from Fort Morgan Road all the way back up to the new bridge or to the toll bridge if the new bridge wasn’t built. That’s come apart because ALDOT is not willing to now fund that road or help fund that road.”
ALDOT appeared to lose interest in the bypass once bidding on the Waterways Bridge project was postponed. Now the vital bypass is in limbo.
“To be determined on where we are on that,” Craft said during the town hall. “We have no timeframe to be able to talk about that because we just don’t know. We spent a lot of time with this neighborhood trying to let the neighborhood to give us input on where this road needs to go. We worked great with the state park to endorse allowing us to go through there.”
Mayor Kennon’s position has steadfastly argued that a new Gulf Shores bridge will do little to alleviate congestion into Alabama’s beach communities.