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Killing mid-county span could cost $10 million
Artist rendering of Mid-Currituck Bridge in Aydlett. (NCDOT)
The state would also be on the hook for at least 30 years to pay the difference between toll revenues and what it would cost to build the Mid-Currituck bridge. The estimated cost of the project is $650 million.
In a letter dated Aug. 3, Executive Director David Joyner, answered a series of questions posed in July by the four co-chairs of Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee.
Click here to see the July 26 letter from the committee »
The committee is co-chaired by Sen. Bill Rabon (R-Brunswick), Sen. Kathy Harrington (R-Gaston), Rep. Phillip Frye (R-Mitchell) and Rep. Grey Mills (R-Iredell),
Rabon has been a vocal critic of the mid-Currituck bridge and other proposed toll projects across the state, including one in his district.
Addressing concerns raised by the committee, Joyner pointed out the state will retain ownership of the bridge throughout the 50-year term of the contract, and the private partnership is required to invest at least $40 million in the project. A preliminary partnership agreement was signed in 2009 between the Turnpike Authority and Currituck Development Group LLC.
Once the state and private partners close on the contract, 30-year bonds would be issued to finance the project, which would be repaid using a toll revenues.
“Publicly funded (gap) appropriations will be required only for the first 30 years of the project,” Joyner stated. “The final 20 years of operations and maintenance will be self-sustaining through toll revenue and will require no additional appropriation of public funds.”
“At the point that bonds are issued, the state is obligated to use the gap funds to secure and repay the 30-year-term appropriation bonds,” Joyner said.
The authority estimates $26 million a year would be needed annually in the state government’s annual budget to make up the shortfalls.
“As with almost all new toll projects, projected toll revenues are not expected to pay the total cost of financing the project,” Joyner said.
The state would have to pay for any work done by the partnership if the project is cancelled before the final agreement is signed.
“During the period of time between commercial close and financial close, the state’s financial obligation to the project will not exceed $10 million,” Joyner said.
If a suit threatened by environmental groups in hopes of blocking the project is successful, the state would still have a financial obligation to meet.
“If, after commercial close, legal action does not allow the project to move forward, the risk to the state will be capped at $10 million for costs incurred by the private partner,” Joyner said. “The private partner will only be compensated for work performed needed to obtain the environmental permits.”
The state would take ownership of all design work conducted by the private partners and could use those plans to build the bridge on its own.
The 7-mile-long toll bridge would span the Currituck Sound from the Aydlett community on the mainland to between Corolla Bay and Monteray Shores on the Outer Banks.
Supporters say the bridge is necessary to address summertime traffic on U.S. 158 and N.C. 12 and help speed hurricane evacuations.
Detractors counter it would create an explosion of development and traffic on both the mainland and along the Currituck Outer Banks.
See the Aug. 3 letter from Joyner »
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OBX Res says:
The bridge is a waste of money to the citizens of NC. Let me ask you this, would you be willing to give up $10,000 today to get $25,000 per year for each of the next 30 years? If you would, then multiply the $25,000 by 1,000 and you’ll have the $25 million per year that the taxpayers of NC will need to pay to fund the operations of this bridge beyond any tolls collected. That’s what the Gap Funding is. I was at the Rt 12/US 158 at 9 am and 11 am this morning and there were (at most) 3 cars waiting at the intersection in every direction. I took pictures for proof. Stop the stupidity of funding a project that fails to meet the stated purposes. The draft environmental impact statement says that, without improvements to Rt 12 and the section of 158 from Rt 12 to Wright Memorial Bridge, that no improvement in hurricane evacuation will be accomplished. It also states that with a bridge, traffic south of Corolla will get worse, not better. This project has only one real goal, to promote real estate development North of Duck.
PS in KDH says:
@OBX Res:
Fails to meet what stated purpose? A new bridge to Corolla and Duck? The means to alleviate all of that traffic from the Wright Memorial bridge to Kitty Hawk and all points south?
Anyone who lives here knows that a large portion of the traffic over the Wright Memorial Bridge is for Corolla and Duck. Giving those people a way to their destination without having to block those going further south would only help all concerned.
How would traffic south of Corolla get any worse? Traffic would now come from the north. That doesn’t make any sense.
Jon says:
How about three-laning NC12 north through Duck, with the center lane as a reversible travel lane on Saturdays in the summer? Too dangerous eh? Well, I watched a car drive about a half a mile in the center lane in the middle of Duck village this afternoon
Sarah says:
In response to @OBX Res, you were at the light yesterday? One time you watched the traffic and think that one is enough? (Over a weekend when everyone know rentals are down because kids are back in school). Please, try traffic watching on a weekend in June, July or August. Furthermore OBX residents are held captive on the weekends due to traffic. What if I want to go to Sams Club or other shopping in VA Beach? I certainly cannot go on the weekends (in the summer) for fear of sitting in hours of traffic. The bridge has a purpose that would benefit both sides. The stupidity here is making a statement based on one ill timed observation.
obxdad says:
If vacation rental companies were required to spread out their turnover days evenly between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then a lot of the traffic jams would be minimized.
However, I’m still in favor of the bridge – anything that reduces the number of Jersey plates on lower 158 and Rt. 12 has my vote.
OBX Tom says:
It’s horrible with the amount of money the OBX takes in and how bad it still is ? Wake up politicians…. Make the necessary improvements and the OBX could be the best destination on the East Coast. Fix the traffic problem, parking problem, build a boardwalk with amusement rides, a waterpark, etc… The OBX is a goldmine but they loose to much revenue on easy solutions.
OBX Res says:
@PS
I’m thinking you haven’t taken the time to read the Environmental Impact Statements and the associated reports. This is going to make traffic worse, not better. Hurricane evacuation gets worse because the bridge encourages more development and buildout of platted homesites. It says the traffic will get worse (adding more homeowners to those traveling to sights on the lower Outer Banks). Read the statements and then make your decision. Remember, during an evacuation all that traffic merges south of the JP Knapp Bridge in Coinjock, so the point of collision has just moved North from Rt 12/NC158.
I’m for better roads. @ Jon, Agree, improve Duck’s traffic flow. Lets take it a step further and build a 2-laned flyover starting at just south of Dogwood Tr, one lane would head north, the other south, those turning towards Duck would enter the flyover and bypass (over the Food Lion, Walmart, Home Depot stoplights) the Rt12/NC158 intersection. Those heading North would bypass the shopping centers and merge from the left side of the Northbound lane just short of the Wright Memorial bridge. Ultimately, this is what the EIS says is necessary to improve hurricane evacuation. Without improvement to the roads, the bridge has no positive effect on hurricane evacuation per the EIS.
Bob Cameron says:
The real traffic issue is Duck. Once past Duck, summertime traffic clears up. Why not put a bridge around Duck?
Frank Moore says:
@Bob you hit the nail squarely on the head ! That would end the majority of the traffic problems.
OBX Res says:
@Sarah
Just because I commented on yesterday’s traffic doesn’t mean I don’t travel it daily. I took notice specifically because it was a Holiday weekend–just as I did at Memorial Day, and July 4th. All the same (although Memorial was a little more), traffic slack. It was much worse a couple of weeks back, but even then I had traveled the route prior to 10am with hardly any traffic. By 2pm (due principally to traffic lights at Walmart and Rt 12) it was backed up to Grandy. Heading South towards KDH, very little traffic past 158/12 intersection. Northbound traffic was backed up because people turning towards Corolla were turning across 158 and stopping in the lanes, blocking the Northbound lanes, and absolutely no police presence to monitor or prevent this. No amount of bridge building will prevent stupidity and rudeness.
If you sit at the 158/12 intersection and count the number of cars (I have) and sit at the Currituck County line on Rt12 and count the cars, you will realize that those cars traveling North of the county line are a minimal part of the problem. Additionally, a large number of the vehicles crossing the line north are Dare business people servicing accounts in the Corolla area. They’re going to return to Dare, not use a bridge.
So you tell me that because you can’t go to Sam’s Club for 4 weekends during the year, that you expect taxpayers to pay way over $1.5 billion? Where’s the stupidity in this situation… A flyover takes the backups out of the equation (particularly if bottleneck of Duck is addressed.
Kdh resident says:
Frank, do you work and have the need to travel to Duck every day?. How often do you go there and what for? Just curious.
OBX Tom says:
If the Realtors would collaborate and have different check in times for different cities (Kitty Hawk,KDH,etc.) than the traffic wouldn’t be hectic at 3:00pm on a Saturday ? Does any realtor have Sunday to Sunday anymore ? Everyone is trying to get on the island to get their key at the same time ? Am I the only one that knows this problem ? As locals we know to hunker down during the weekends!! We pray we don’t have to go out because we forgot something…. Way to many accidents and fatalities on the bypass…
KDH Mom says:
Well, I travel to Corolla every Sat and I take the back way by the elem school to 11th Ave and it takes me about 45 from KDH to the house I clean. We are talking about spending all of this money for how many weeks of traffic each year?? We are going to fund toll takers for 12 months for basically nothing 9 months out of the year. My father built bridges all his life and he said the bridge will cost twice what they project, because of storm damage and the length of the build. He said the unknowns will drive the price sky high. A money pit! We NEED the Oregon Inlet bridge much worse than making things easier for tourist and big money developers. That bridge is going to fall. The inspector wouldn’t even drive across it a few years back and it is rated a 1 out of 100, with 100 being the best. The state needs to focus it’s funds there.
question? says:
The problem is no one obeys the check-in times now! They cannot even get into their house until 4 Pm and they are here at 9 am, clogging our roads. And then you have the brilliant money makers charging extra $200 for early check-in.
Frank Moore says:
@Kdh resident no I don’t work now but I did for 43 years and I never travel to Duck; there is nothing there that I need or interest me. We do need road improvements at that intersection or a lot better traffic control during the “season”. Hopefully someone will come up with a solution that everyone can agree on and does the job because there are folks who live, work and play there and it shouldn’t be a major task just to get home.
Ralph & Dana Falardeau says:
We are twelve year full-time “townies”, We were given the privilege of living in one of the most beautiful places in the US. We care about our community, but look at this realistically. If it wasn’t for the tourist trade our taxes would be sky high, businesses would shut down and the viability for businesses to maintain year round operations would diminish. No Doctors, no teachers, etc.
Safety of locals and visitors needs to be an essential consideration in drawing business to our area. We live on a corner lot off Route 12. Aside from the nuisance of getting in and out of our own driveway, and people u-turning across our lawn, the emergency vehicle issues are very real. When we hear the sirens, we know it’s summer. We just pray it’s not serious.
Two weeks ago I was the victim of a trucker driving a Peterbuilt tractor who was stuck behind a line of cars on his way to go into Wal-Mart. When he realized (or thought)that the Home Depot/Harris Teeter turn lane was empty he cut his wheels sharply to change lanes. I stopped and honked my horn and he kept coming and literally pushed my vehicle over the median sideways into oncoming traffic. The southbound traffic was going 1 mph, so I got lucky (if you call it lucky).
We were within walking distance of the SS Police Dept, but because the accident occurred in KH, we had to wait 20+ minutes for a response officer (again due to traffic and other incidents needing tending to). So the traffic kept backing up.
The trucker wasn’t given a ticket, I was told that they couldn’t give a ticket for every infraction during tourist season and that our insurance companies would work it out, but he indicated the truck was at fault. Well the trucker’s insurance company tried to use that lack of a ticket and a different version of the accident from the truck driver to blame me for the accident and the damage to the truck. Fortunately, I had witnesses.
Again, the inability of our police professionals to adequately handle accidents and who’s priority to to clear the traffic in tourist season is a direct result of too many vehicles on the one route to get to and from their destination.
Add a hurricane to that mix, or a heart attack victim, a major fire or a child in distress and we have ourselves a tragedy in the making.
We’ve done all the engineering, sparring and carefully developing plans for the bridge. It’s time to implement. And those who built up in Corolla in recent years and are the most vocal about keeping the charm of the area and reduce development, what makes them think it was OK for them to build up there, but nobody else?
The future down here is growth, like it or not. Just look around. The only thing that hasn’t adapted are the people who feel that not accomodating the growth and updating our infrastructure will stave off the inevitable.
Native says:
OBX Tom says:
It’s horrible with the amount of money the OBX takes in and how bad it still is ? Wake up politicians…. Make the necessary improvements and the OBX could be the best destination on the East Coast. Fix the traffic problem, parking problem, build a boardwalk with amusement rides, a waterpark, etc… The OBX is a goldmine but they loose to much revenue on easy solutions.
REALLY? I’ve lived here my entire life, that is the LAST thing myself or probably anyone with ties here more than 10 years wants to see. If that is what people want, take the turnpike to the Jersey shore or Myrtle Beach. Judging by the number of cars from Jersey and PA around here, clearly thats not something they are interested in either. I agree some of the traffic issues need work but building more attractions is not what we need. Part of our charm is (or at least was) the lack of those things. Another question is, how will this new bridge change things? Will there now be a back up north near Grandy instead of Point Harbor? Fact is….the road up there is still two lane so essentially the same problem will arise, just in a different spot. I travel to Norfolk to work once a week year round. Is the traffic on Saturdays a pain? Absolutely! But it is only for really about 3 months of the year.
I certainly don’t think the solution is to build more of anything….we’ve already done that. Now we will just have to lie in our mess.
OBX Res says:
@ “Ralph & Dana”
And yet your reason for the bridge has nothing to do with the stated purposes… I agree with infrastructure, build it where it is needed, the corridor from Wright Memorial to the Rt12/US158 intersection (hopefully that wouldn’t involve taking your property).
Thankfully, you didn’t have a serious consequence to your accident, but I don’t see how that has any relationship to the need for a bridge 15 miles north! I’m hoping your not trying to make an arguement that because there was a lot of traffic traveling South, a commercial truck driver DRIVING NORTH made a late attempt to turn into as you describe it an “empty” lane into Harris Teeter–his mistake, not completely empty as you were there. Yes, there is more law enforcement needed there. Use some of the tax money of the “tourist trade” to mitigate the impact of those tourists (ie. stop them from stopping in the middle of intersections and an officer or two posted constantly at the Harris Teeter/Walmart/visitor center during 9am to 5pm on weekends would be a great start. Failure to do so begins to beg the question whether local officials are attempting to create outrage by visitors and locals in order to justify the bridge.
Throwing good money after bad, particularly when future expenditures dwarf money already spent, is never good. Billions to spend to justify the millions spent?
BridgeAlternative says:
Why not a massive ferry operation along the same route north of Duck 3-4 months out of the year? Has this been studied?
Prep:
Dredge a channel maybe? Ramp locations at both ends. Generates a lil income locally too.
Enforcement:
Own or rent north of Southern Shores, encoded red sticker on car. Southern shores and south, green sticker. Maintenance personnel blue stickers, they can go both ways. Rental companies required to mail the sticker to renters. Automated image recognition cameras east of Aydlett and at ferry on-ramps. Get your $250 non-compliance ticket in the mail. No pay, forget renting in OBX in your future. Resident no-pay violations, no inspection sticker til paid. Simple, cheap, manageable with current law enforcement, maybe one or two extra compliance officer positions paid for by the income it’ll generate.
Pay for it:
Dredging ops: add-on tax to rentals. Existing residents grandfathered, no new tax. New residents get taxed on top of yearly real-estate tax.
Ferry ops: Private. Lots of companies along the coast and in Tidewater that’d jump on this is my guess.
Environmental impact:
Probably a lot less than a ginormous bridge and all that goes with that. Newport News shipbuilding gets a few new contracts?
Things to think about:
Look at some of the bigger ferries like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Britain. Don’t think small – this is definitely do-able. Naysayers: a large hydroplaning ferry could do away with most of the dredging.
An economic boon for Aydlett/Currituck where the ferry on-ramp’d be located (i.e. retail – i’m sure Powell’s would jump at the chance to put a location there, large intra-county seafood retail outlet to help local watermen, etc., etc.)
Ferries could be called in in the off-season to help w/hurricane evac (probly not needed as locals are more adept at this).
Just my 2c. Love to hear some feedback from someone involved in the engineering studies on all this.
NagsHeader says:
The Currituck/Corolla bridge is a done deal.
Common sense finally prevails.
Steve says:
If you had a Ferry… even multiple Ferrys, you would have such a back up on 158 people would drive right into the water to get away from the madness.
The only other alternative would be to open a road from VA through Carova… then down… connecting everything.
This bridge could create a unique opportunity for Currituck beaches… Look at how nicely Duck has blossomed.
OBX Res says:
@Steve
I hope you are being facetious! Duck has “blossomed” into a nightmare traffic quagmire. It’s nice from an accommodations standpoint. It used to be unique but is becoming just like NJ, Ocean City, and Va Beach in its crowdedness and parking problems.
@NagsHeader
No, Common sense would say that $1.5 billion to solve a 16 day problem doesn’t make any sense at all. A ferry won’t handle the volume but a flyover doesn’t take up more space from Wright Memorial to Rt12/NC158 intersection, can be built for much less than the $650 million (which is drastically understated–in fact, the final estimate has not yet been stated.) The road from the North won’t happen initially, maybe after all the other lots south of the Nature Conservancy land is finally built out, the pressure will be applied by developmental interest. Just imagine an uninterrupted stretch of development from Duck to the gate to the beach North of Corolla without any improvement in Rt 12 (bridge proposal doesn’t improve Rt 12 at all). Wow–you’re all right, traffic will be perfect…think I’ll take the bridge to Sam’s Club…
Angus McDonald says:
I live in Harbinger, NC. Harbinger is the last township before the you go over the Wright Brother’s Memorial Bridge, if you are driving South on Route 158.
I have seen the miles long traffic jams every year and I’ve had lots of time to look and think of the root cause of the traffic issue.
Putting in a Mid-Currituck bridge will not solve the problem with the traffic. It will provide another entrance into corolla and ease the time and expense of driving the big loop and provide emergency usage during a crisis, i.e. Hurricanes.
Here is the root cause of the traffic problem. The traffic stops and slows are created by the traffic lights on the Kitty Hawk side of the bridge. There are (3) traffic lights that are necessary due to the shopping plaza. People need to enter, exit and cross-over between plaza’s
With all of the traffic coming south from the bridge, the traffic begins to build around 8:30AM, Saturday & Sunday of the summer weeks. By around 10:30AM the traffic is up to the Exxon Station, near the Harley dealer.
I admit that building a new bridge will ease the traffic flow but I think all parties concerned will be very dissapointed, after spending $10 million on a new bridge, only to find the same traffic problem. Not to mention the time involved with building a new bridge.
An accurate address of the situation would involve an alternate route on the Kitty Hawk side of the bridge down to Duck from 158. And also slowing the traffic on the bridge to perhaps 45MPH. That’s slow but just is just a suggestion. But just an alternate route to Duck may resolve the traffic issue. There seems to be vacant land in the area, I’m not sure how much.
I think its worthwhile looking at this solution and perhaps prevent a great expenditure and an unexpected outcome.
Another solution, albeit radical is to create an elevated bypass that would allow drivers the option of bypassing the shopping plaza. That would definitely resolve the traffic issue and wold be less expensive. And if done correctly would not be very unsightly and obtrusive.
SteveR says:
As stated, the bridge would increase the traffic problems in the area.