‘It’s about to get real’ – Alabama prepares for giant step toward I-10 bridge project # ‘It’s about to get real’ – Alabama prepares for giant step toward I-10 bridge project Mobile River Bridge project to take new step forward By Brendan Kirby Published: Sep.
fox10tv.com · Brendan Kirby · September 7, 2026
‘It’s about to get real’ – Alabama prepares for giant step toward I-10 bridge project
# ‘It’s about to get real’ – Alabama prepares for giant step toward I-10 bridge project
Mobile River Bridge project to take new step forward
By Brendan Kirby
Published: Sep. 7, 2026 at 5:50 PM CDT| Updated: 30 minutes ago
MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Westbound traffic slowed to a crawl across the Bayway most of the day Monday. Even the Causeway was backed up.
The Labor Day traffic jam fit a familiar summer holiday pattern, where travelers hit a bottleneck at the Wallace Tunnel. Alabama officials, though, are planning to take a giant step next week toward a project they hope will make Interstate 10 traffic jams mostly a thing of the past. By the end of next week, the Alabama Department of Transportation hopes to lock down the financing needed to pay for the $3.2 billion project.
“It’s about to get real,” said Jack Burrell, chairman of the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization. “I do think we’re going to stick a shovel in the ground this year. I’m very, very confident in that. Everything is moving in the right direction right now.”
A two-day process Sept. 16-17 should give Alabama the cash it needs to start construction of a six-lane cable-stayed bridge that will carry drivers from Mobile to a newly restriped Bayway that will allow for three lanes of traffic in both directions.
First, the state plans to finalize low-interest loans through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, that can pay up to nearly half the cost of the project. Next, the state plans to sell revenue bonds to private investors to make up the portion not covered by the TIFIA loan and direct government spending.
Burrell said heavy-volume traffic could slow at the merge point on the Bayway, but he added that it is light years better than current conditions.
“I think that there’s maybe a natural tendency to slow down there, but it’s certainly not gonna be like a 90-degree turn going into a tunnel like we have to deal with now in only four lanes,” he said. “So I definitely think it will alleviate the traffic.”
Those current conditions were on full display Monday, with Labor Day vacationers fighting traffic in the westbound direction on the Bayway. Even the Causeway was backed up. Paul and Jenny Wilson, who were making their way home to Mississippi from a trip to the Eastern Shore, said they’ve never seen it so bad.
“It was bumper to bumper, and we thought they had an accident,” said Paul Wilson, who lives in Madison, Mississippi. “Actually, getting out of the Hampton Inn, when we got out, you couldn’t even pull out onto that traffic going south.”
Added Jenny Wilson: “I was surprised. We’ve never been in so much traffic down here. We thought maybe there was a wreck or something.”
The Wilsons said they were not familiar with the bridge plan, but they added it is a good idea. That also was the sentiment of Meridian, Mississippi, resident Brandi Birchett, who got caught up in traffic with other vacationers who spent the holiday weekend at the beach. She said taking the Causeway wasn’t much of an alternative on this day.
“It was slow coming in, for sure. … It’s backed up all the way to Spanish Fort,” she said.
The Alabama Department of Transportation already has spent millions of dollars on the project. That includes $125 million from a so-called Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight and Highway Projects program, or INFRA, and most of the $250 million that ALDOT itself put up.
“We are going to continue, as we’ve said over and over – we’re gonna continue to go after more grant money,” Burrell told FOX10 News. “Just because we’ve received the INFRA grant and we received the bridge investment program grant doesn’t mean that we’re gonna stop there and not go after more grant money.”
If the state does not get any additional grants, the full borrowing costs will be repaid by drivers, in the form of tolls. The lowest rate starts at $3 per crossing and includes use of the Bayway. And, of course, the state has to find investors willing to buy the bonds.
Burrell said he does not think that will be a problem.
“They’re state-backed, so they should sell quickly,” he said.
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