The North Carolina Turnpike Authority (NCTA) will not be receiving the $425 million federal grant for the Mid Currituck Bridge that the agency had hoped would offset the cost of the project.
On Oct. 20 of this year, the US Department of Transportation announced the awarding of the infrastructure grants that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) had applied for. The Mid Currituck Bridge was not on that list. The North Carolina Turnpike Authority is part of NCDOT, and the transportation agency is in charge of the project.
The cost of the bridge has continued to rise significantly faster than the rate of inflation. The Voice reported in July that the price tag for the seven-mile toll project connecting mainland Currituck County with Corolla was approximately $1 billion. The latest NCDOT cost estimate is $1.139 billion.
In an email to the Voice, Logan Hodges, NCTA Director of Marketing indicated that the agency is continuing to work on the project and exploring options to make up the funding shortfall.
“The project team is continuing to advance the project, including the submission of permit applications [and] identifying other future grant opportunities,” he wrote.
In his email, Hodges pointed to a private public partnership (P3) as possible means to fund the project. NCDOT had a P3 agreement for the Mid-Currituck Bridge from 2009 until 2014 but chose not to renew the agreement when it expired after five years.
“The P3 market has evolved over the last 10 years, and the number of private developers has also grown. NCDOT has heard from a number of developers that are interested in delivering this project,” he wrote.
Kym Meyer, Litigation Director for the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), pointed out that any P3 agreement will probably be based on toll revenues—and those revenues were already earmarked for debt service.
“Toll revenue was already assumed to be a large part of funding when the $425 million was assumed. I’m not sure how much more they can get out of a P3 agreement,” she said.
Outgoing Chair of the Currituck County Board of Commissioners Bob White does not see the failure of NCDOT to get the grant as a major hurdle.
“That was something they were hoping for, but it’s not necessarily necessary that they have it,” he told the Voice. “It was a way to help cut down what they’re going have to borrow, basically.”
For regional policy leaders, the next steps for funding the project are unclear. “(It’s) still too early in the process. I have literally no answers,” State Senator Bobby Hanig told the Voice.
David Whitmer, Executive Director of the Albemarle Regional Planning Organization (ARPO) said much the same thing, telling the Voice that there “would probably be an update on this” at the January 2025 meeting of the ARPO.
And, he added, any update would have to wait until NCDOT indicated what their next steps will be. “We have to get a NCDOT designation or clarification, because that’s who controls that [project],” he said.
The growing cost of the project may create an additional hurdle for NCDOT to cross. Meyer points to federal law that requires a project to show it is the Least Environmentally Damaging Practicable Alternative (LEDPA). Other proposals to alleviate the traffic woes, including a flyover at the NC12/US158 intersection in Kitty Hawk and improvements to NC12, may now be less expensive and may cause less environmental damage.
Nor is litigation completely off the table. Although federal courts earlier this year ruled for NCDOT and against the SELC in finding that the agency had followed the law in issuing their Record of Decision for the bridge, Meyer indicated the SELC will be following the environmental permitting that is necessary before construction can begin.
For Southern Shores Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, who has been in the midst of the battle to get the bridge built in the hope it will alleviate the summer traffic woes in the town, the news that the state did not get the grant is discouraging.
“Disappointing, to say the least, for as long as this thing gone on and much planning and preparation has gone into it,” he said. “It just seems like it’s a continuous one step forward, two steps back.”
Source – Kip Tabb Outer Banks Voice https://www.outerbanksvoice.com/2024/11/27/one-step-forward-two-steps-back-for-mid-currituck-bridge/