ALDOT official: I-10 cost estimates, financing options coming by June 1

A draft financial plan for the revised Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge & Bayway project will be ready by June 1, “if not sooner,” according to an official with the Alabama Department of Transportation.

Edwin Austin, chief engineer with ALDOT, said the hope is to discuss “construction details, cost estimates, financing options, and the possibility of state and federal funding” with the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in Mobile and the Eastern Shore of Baldwin County.

Related stories:

Austin provided the update in a memo to representatives of both MPOs, said the state was “challenged to finalize cost estimates” for the massive overhaul to I-10, blaming “significant marketplace volatility driven by inflation, supply chain issues, fuel costs and financial uncertainty.”

“We remain focused on getting a final proposal to you as quickly as possible, however, it is even more important that we get these next steps right,” he said.

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, in a statement, said he felt it was “understandable” that economic issues are affecting the I-10 project.

“No one in the country is immune to the impacts of inflation and rising costs,” he said.

Fairhope City Council President, and Eastern Shore MPO chairman Jack Burrell, said he felt it was important that all MPO members “have confidence” in the I-10 plan that ALDOT finalizes and presents to coastal Alabama officials.

“It’s our job to be responsible stewards of the taxpayer’s money as this project moves forward,” Burrell said.

ALDOT is working toward a final plan to incorporate the MPO-developed framework released in December for the new I-10 project.

Under that plan, a $2.50 toll would be assessed to motorists using the new infrastructure – a new 215-foot cable-stay bridge over the Mobile River and an elevated I-10 Bayway extending 7.5 miles from downtown Mobile to U.S. 98 in Daphne.

Toll revenue will be used to pay for the project. The tolls would end once the project is paid for, and any addition state or federal funds made available will be used to pay down project debt and shorten the toll duration.

The plan requires the state to include free, no-toll options on the Causeway, the Wallace Tunnel, the Bankhead Tunnel and the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge.

Cost estimates for the I-10 project were at $2.1 billion in 2019, which would have made it the most expensive road project in Alabama state history.

The project was declared “dead” by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey in August 2019, after the Eastern Shore MPO voted to remove the project from its short-term plans. The project has since been added back into those plans.

The 2019 project was to be finance through a public-private partnership (P3) and backed by a one-way toll of $6 for motorists who drove along the entire length of the Bayway. The previous plan also called for tolling the Wallace Tunnel.

That plan crumbled under criticism over the toll cost and the inclusion of potential private investors.

ALDOT Director John Cooper, who was the chief supporter of the former plan, said in January that he supports the framework backed by the MPOs in Mobile and the Eastern Shore.